


Survive Your Naked Eyes

by Ladybmorebelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Being old, But not exactly, Childhood Trauma, Christmas, Cigarettes, Clubbing, Divorce, Drarry, Erotic Literary Fiction, Full novelization in the works, Getting Back Together, Harry Potter Epilogue Compliant, I'm a goddamn softie, Ireland, M/M, Multi, Music, Non-Linear Narrative, Pansy is a bitch and Merlin do I love her, Poetry, Post-War, Queer Themes, References to David Bowie, Scorbus, W.B. Yeats, being young, booze, living rough, playlist included, time jumps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 43,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27416818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybmorebelle/pseuds/Ladybmorebelle
Summary: Twenty years ago, Draco ran away to Ireland, and Harry followed him. A few months of passion and frenzy and youth and wildness - doing all the things that kids can do after years of trauma and abuse - and then Harry ran back to safety. Now, Harry realizes that he cannot continue the life he built, and Draco isn't sure he can ever love again. This story is about memory, about growing up - about the years when their hearts are fresh enough to break and the ensuing years of numbness and self-denial. And it's about love, and how it is never too late to be all the way happy.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley (past), Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter
Comments: 62
Kudos: 107





	1. Chapter 1

He was 37. Fuck. He was 37.

When he ran away from everything - from England, from his family, from green eyes and guilt and casual schoolboy violence - he ran far. He got his first shitty apartment in Cork, Ireland, and he tried to live on the razor edge of a knife, in the dangerous dance of his own self-destruction. He had a dodgy upstairs neighbor, Cathal, and windows which didn’t shut all the way, and the water wasn’t ever quite warm enough, but it was - it was his. 

He was 19, and he was lost, so terribly alone, and the first thing he bought was a record player and a stack of LPs. 

Music was what kept him going - the kind of music that his parents had never let him listen to, ugly and wailing and wild, soft and heartbreaking, stupid and silly and utterly perfect. Led Zeppelin blared out when he smoked his first spliff (courtesy of that same upstairs neighbor, who was quite sketchy indeed, but with an apartment full of exotic birds and a too-kind heart). Tiffany sang about being alone, and he danced in front of the cracked mirror while he cut his own hair. 

He listened to The Clash and thought about his father, about imposing his own brand of anarchy on his stilted and tight fisted childhood. He threw things and threw up at two in the morning, the McDonald’s he’d grabbed after a night at the clubs coming up looking not all that dissimilar from the way it went down.

Stevie Wonder sang about falling in love and he tried, he really did, not to think about green eyes and black hair.

And then there was David Bowie. 

The feeling of sunrise in Cork - the way the air was damp and fresh, shaking, all too aware of the panic of nighttime, liminal and lined with edges of gold - went best with Bowie. Some mornings he listened to “Heroes,” and he thought about what he had never been. On other mornings he put on “Let’s Dance” and drank cup after cup of shitty instant coffee before heading down across Saint Patrick Street to scrub the sticky floors of the club he’d been writhing in four hours before. 

Rainy days and it was “Bring Me the Disco King” and he thought about taking a knife to the inside of his arm. When the flat was freezing with cold in a wet way which felt like falling into the sea, he played “My Death,” which was Jacques Brel, but Bowie lived and died it. And “The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud” was what he played when he first took another man into himself and wanted to scream out to his father and his past and those bitter green eyes. 

He’d had enough of silence. 

But most of all, that first year was marked by an almost orgiastic adherence to a sepulchral warning - “don’t wanna stay alive/When you’re 25.” 

He didn’t think he would make it. He figured there was nothing much to live for at 19, anyway, other than one more drink, one more fuck, a few more cups of coffee, trad nights with American exchange students grinding in the corners, balancing on the rock wall across from Art McBride’s at three in the morning and itching, always, to jump into the water and melt the fuck away. 

And now, at 37, he was still very much alive - his blood pumped through him, and his brain was sparking in manic fury and discontent, and his skin felt like ice. He had a job, a respectable one, and he had a smooth face which no one could read. He had an ex-wife and a child an aging mother. He was mostly sober. He played music at an acceptable volume. 

He was back in the manor. 

And every little part of him, the broken bits, the whole bits - every breath which reminded him of cigarettes at midnight - every time his mother looked at him with a vague, muted disappointment - every time he saw green eyes in the newspaper - every morning when he didn’t wake up in that shitty flat with Cathal and the parakeets upstairs and the old record player and the LPs which skipped - 

Every single cell in his body longed, desperately. 

Silently.

He was 37.

He wanted to burn the world down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here begins the long-ass song list which I shall continue. I am a dork of the highest order.
> 
> Playlist tracks: "Survive Your Naked Eyes" by David Bowie; "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin; "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany; "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash; "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" by Stevie Wonder; "Heroes," "Let's Dance," "Bring Me the Disco King," "My Death," "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud," "All The Young Dudes" by David Bowie.


	2. Chapter 2

“For Merlin’s sake, Al.”

Harry, when pressed, would admit with a sheepish half-tilt of his lips that Albus Severus was his favorite child. Al was quiet, a dreamer, and he looked like his dad with the unexpected sarcasm to match, and Harry might have felt just a little bit guilty about the name (but it was too late, now). 

But, at the moment, as he stared into the back seat of his magically upgraded VW Golf GTI and saw Al’s Hogwarts robes, he thought, fuck, that kid’s just as oblivious as I am.

Was. Er. Whatever.

“Well?”

Gin, just as pretty as ever but twice as worn out, strapped Lily into her seatbelt. She looked at Harry - with a, that’s your kid, you numpty, glare - and he got the message. Grabbing the robes, he slid out of the car and handed over the keys.

“I’ll apparate home, yeah?”

“Hmm.”

A quick kiss, familiar, on her freckled cheek. And then they had that quick moment which probably happened to a lot of couples on their way to a divorce but not used to it yet - oh, shit.

Harry turned away, and after all, that’s what Ginny had said he always did. He jogged back into the station with the robes clutched tightly in his right hand, dodging commuters who looked at him with all of the grumpiness of Londoners without their second cups of tea.

He barely looked at the wall - the gateway to the platform - because all he could think about was the softness of his wife’s, his soon to be ex-wife’s, cheek, and how that softness stopped being enough, somehow, and how was this going to work, and what would the kids do, and fuck, he probably totally missed the train. And he kept running through the wall, right into the back of another parent.

“Shit, sorry.”

He still barely looked up, desperate to reach the train in time, but he was hit by a familiar smell and by the softness of an expensive cloak. Juniper, sandalwood, vanilla, a thick-napped velvet. 

He looked up into grey eyes just a few inches higher than his own.

He was going to throttle Albus.

“Potter.”

“Er.”

“Well said.”

Yeah. He’d spotted Malfoy earlier, there with his wife - well, his ex-wife, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? - and with a tiny Malfoy with all of the icy looks of his father but with a big, toothy grin. He had tried, in that moment, not to think anything at all. 

“Is there something…”

He looked up at Malfoy and felt like he’d been hit by a perfectly executed Confundus. 

“Potter,” Malfoy rolled his eyes and sighed, “Is there a reason that you are holding a set of first year’s robes?”

He looked at his hands.

“Oh, shit!”

Of course, that’s when the train started to move.

Harry looked at the train. Looked at the robes. Looked up at Malfoy.

“For fuck’s sake,” the look on Malfoy’s face was almost, almost fond, but as usual entirely unimpressed, “Just apparate to Hogsmeade in an hour or so, walk up to the castle, deliver the robes, and enjoy the applause of your devoted fans.”

He scrunched up his face, “I’m a little old for that, Malfoy. Half those kids don’t know who I am.”

“How lucky for them,” and he finally broke eye contact, “And you’re not that old.”

Harry felt something crawling in his chest.

“I feel old.”

Malfoy scoffed. He was unbelievably good at scoffing.

“Yes, well,” and then he caught Harry’s eyes again, “It’s been quite a while.”

“Hmm.”

They stood like that, just a foot apart - neither of them had moved back - and Harry felt like he had lost the plot, and Malfoy smelled just the same, just the same, and he remembered the stone wall next to the River Lee. Cork at sunrise, and cigarettes laced with hash, and the most beautiful and most fucked up time in his entire life. 

“Well, not that this hasn’t been -” he laughed, half a breath, and ran a perfectly manicured hand through his still platinum hair - “Merlin, yes, this has been awful, good luck with the robes, Potter.”

Malfoy brushed past him, towards the wall between the muggle world and the wizarding, and Harry watched his back, not for the first time, and he almost tore the robes between his shaking hands.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Paper Bag" by Fiona Apple. 
> 
> "Hunger hurts  
> But I want him so bad  
> Oh it kills"


	3. Chapter 3

Malfoy had looked - ill.

It was a long slog, the death eater trials. Lucius’s trial was early on - his guilt beyond obvious, his crimes severe - but Narcissa and Draco weren’t tried until three weeks after that. 

Harry hadn’t known that they’d been kept in holding cells for almost an entire month. Not until he saw Draco’s skin, pale as ice and more translucent, and could almost count each bone in his delicate hands. 

Later, privately, he’d shouted at Kingsley, demanding an explanation. Kingsley replied, “We’re doing our best, Harry. And frankly, I'm surprised to hear that you care.”

He snapped his mouth shut and stormed out, embarrassed, because he did care. He testified for them. Of course he did. He’d expected Hermione - or at least Ron - to object, but they were both… oddly quiet on the matter.

They were all so tired.

When Draco and his mum were placed on probation - put on house arrest for a year, fines levied for the rebuilding of Hogwarts - they just breathed out. No real sign of relief, or joy. Harry supposed it would be hard to be happy when your father, your husband, had been sentenced to fifty years imprisonment. He wondered if Lucius could survive it. 

He wondered if he cared.

Unchained, Draco held out his arm for his mother to lean on. They left the courtroom, slow and steady and somehow unobtrusive, and that made Harry’s stomach twist as if he were going to vomit. 

The Malfoy sheen was gone, hair dulled, dignity erased. 

It was a terrible end, he thought, to the rivalry that lived in him, innate. 

A month later and Harry was digging in his school trunk and he came across -

Oh. Malfoy’s wand. 

Smooth, slender, understated, elegant.

Such a simple thing by which to save the world. 

Harry was - he would have to admit that he was struggling. He wasn’t really sure who he was supposed to be, anymore. All of the good things about him were tainted by the knowledge that he had been brought up to die. Did he really - could he really say that he existed at all? That he was a real person, with valid desires, worth something more than a pawn in someone else’s plan, destined to be sacrificed? 

So he spent a lot of time tearing down flocked wallpaper, and sanding down floors, and repainting windows at Grimmauld Place. And he Leviosa’d stones and Reparo’d stained glass at Hogwarts. He babysat Teddy and hoped he could - hoped that he might matter.

But picking up Malfoy’s wand - here, in a dim bedroom that belonged to a dead man who might have cared for him - that made him feel alive.

He should have this back, Harry thought. I might as well...

Without thinking about it, he stood, imagined his destination, and apparated to Malfoy Manor.

Where he was promptly set upon by peacocks.

He really hoped, in that moment, that Malfoy was not standing at the window and watching his childhood nemesis running hell for leather away from - apparently quite angry - ornamental birds.

Which, well, he wasn’t. But Narcissa was.

She opened the front door for him and he jumped in, thoughtless, and slammed it behind him. It was only the utter silence of the foyer that alerted him to the fact that he had made possibly the worst entrance in the history of Malfoy manor. 

“Er.”

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought that Narcissa Malfoy was trying not to laugh at him. 

“Welcome, Mr. Potter.”

He flattened the back of his hair, feeling it spring right back up when he put his hand down.

“Thanks, Mrs. Malfoy.”

She raised an eyebrow - something he’d seen Malfoy do a million times. It must have been genetic. Her face was thin, more fine lines than before, but she had maintained some of her steely beauty.

“How may we help you today?”

For a moment, his mind was entirely blank. And then he remembered the wand in his hand. 

“I’m here to - I mean, I want to return -”

“Ah,” Narcissa nodded towards the back of the hall, “Draco’s just down there. In the study.”

She looked at him. He felt rather like some sort of insect under a scorching magnifying glass.

“You will not hurt him,” she paused as he shook his head, “Again.”

He felt shame rush up the skin of his neck.

“No, Mrs. Malfoy. I won’t.”

“Good,” she began to walk towards his right, where he could just make out the ruins of a pretty blue and cream room, a lone chaise longue untouched by decay, “Do not make me regret sharing what little hospitality we have left to offer.”

“Of course,” he mumbled, but he was distracted by some kind of crashing noise coming from the back of the house. 

When he got to the study, he found the source - Draco, throwing things. 

He was still too thin and too pale, but his anger was comforting in its familiarity. Various odds and ends were flying through the air - not because of magic, but because of Draco’s forceful right arm. It was violent, and kind of fun to watch. And it was a little bit beautiful, too, beautiful like some wild beast in a cage, like something feral. 

Harry didn’t realize he was smiling until Draco spotted him and pinned him with a look of utter contempt.

“Come to gloat?”

“No,” Malfoy's face was ugly, almost too broken to behold, and Harry couldn’t smile anymore, “I just -”

“Wanted to see? See how low we’ve fallen?”

Harry grit his teeth, “Well -”

“You don’t need to tell me that it was our fault,” Draco walked over to a table with a decanter of some brown liquor, removing the stopper and swallowing a generous mouthful, “I know what we are.”

“What you were.”

Draco looked up, slammed the bottle down, and then seemed to fold in on himself.

“Don’t tell me you’re here to save me. Not - not again.”

Harry walked further into the room, avoiding shards of glass and wood and pottery. He stopped, far enough away from Draco to be able to draw his own wand if it were necessary. 

And maybe - maybe for some reason he didn't want to touch him. Not right now.

“No, Malfoy. I’m here to -” and he pulled Draco’s wand from his pocket, “I just - you should have this back.”

Draco stared and made no move to take it.

“Why?”

Harry shrugged.

“It’s yours. And I wanted to,” he looked down at his shoes, suddenly embarrassed, “To thank you. For letting me borrow it.”

“I didn’t -”

“Malfoy.”

He met his eyes and just… stared.

Harry had never been good with words. He tried to put it in his eyes - I know, I know that you wanted to escape, I know that this isn’t the life you wanted, I know you didn’t understand what it would all mean. 

All he got back from Draco’s eyes was a flicker - and it could have been understanding, but it also could have been anger, or resentment, or shame. He still made no move to take the wand, so Harry placed it next to the decanter. 

He didn’t know what else to do. So he started to walk away.

“Potter.”

He paused at the door.

“Malfoy?”

“Thanks.”

Later, Harry would run over that interaction in his mind, spinning it around, trying to figure out - anything. He’d imagine the contents of the room - the fire burning too hot, and gold leaf churned into grit on the floor, and the single drop of liquor that escaped Malfoy’s mouth and slid down onto his neck. 

When he saw Malfoy back at Hogwarts, he tried to find some - some connection, some echo of the boy who threw things and gulped firewhiskey and said thank you.

But that Malfoy was gone.

Harry tried not to think about that at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Creep" by Radiohead. 
> 
> "I'm a creep  
> I'm a weirdo  
> What the hell am I doing here?  
> I don't belong here"


	4. Chapter 4

No matter what Malfoy had said, he did get rather too much attention at Hogwarts.

First, Al blushed and tried to push him away. Then Jamie, always in on any action, gave Harry a very conspicuous thumbs up (and a not so friendly laugh). And then everyone at Gryffindor table stood up to watch him, and so did the teachers - including Nev, the recently appointed headmaster - and it was awful.

When he got back home - to the home that Gin was keeping, and he couldn’t call his, anymore - Ginny gave him a quiet, reproving look, and then fed him the dinner that she’d put under a stasis charm.

It was a good dinner. It tasted like dust.

“Daddy, will you read to me tonight?”

“‘Course, Lil.”

Harry had fucked up in many ways, but as he helped Lily into her pyjamas and let her choose a book for bedtime reading, he thought, yeah, I haven’t screwed up being a dad. His kids were happy. Back when Ginny first fell pregnant, he’d been gripped by terror. What if he was too - too broken, too filled with poison, too dead inside, to properly love a child? What if he was really like Petunia, harsh, cold; what if he’d learned hatred from Vernon? 

What if he would look at a child of his blood and resent them bitterly because they’d never have to live the way that he had, hungry, cold, forgotten? It was a terrible thing to be so afraid of whatever monster might live in him - of the ways in which he had been harmed. 

But from the moment Jamie had been placed in his arms - all ten pounds and fourteen ounces of him, because he’d inherited some of the strapping Weasley size, and Morgana bless Ginny for pushing him out - he felt something deep within him unclench. He’d never known love like this.

And that happened again - Al, born a little early and still small, and Lily, the perfect package, seven pounds and bright red fluff. He loved all three of his children so much that it filled the dead parts of him. They almost filled the portions of his heart that could never be satisfied with Ginny.

But having kids wasn’t enough. Not to save a marriage that, perhaps, never should have happened in the first place. 

“Dad,” Lily whined, and it shouldn’t have been so cute, “Pay attention!”

He rolled his tense shoulders.

“Sorry, Lil-bear. Where was I?”

“You were about to sing the stump song!”

Oh, great. His favorite part. Wizarding literature really was… something. But apparently no one could sing the cackling stump’s song as well as he.

He made his babbity rabbity face, nose all scrunched up, and sang until Lily was almost crying with laughter.

“Good enough?”

“Yeah, Dad,” Lily took a deep breath and then hiccupped and fell dramatically back onto the bed, “Oh, no!”

Just like her mum. Harry remembered the first time he’d made her laugh so hard that she’d gotten the hiccups, and kept hiccupping for hours. 

It had been a very long time since that happened. 

Harry held out the customary glass of water.

“What am I going to do with you, Lil-bear?”

She took a sip.

“Love me forever, ‘course.” A classic routine, the answers long ago memorized.

“Oh, yes,” he pretended that he had forgotten, that her words were a revelation, “I suppose you must be right.”

“Just like always.”

“Just like always.”

Harry leaned over and kissed her smooth forehead, and pulled the covers up to her chin.

“Night,” her eyes were already closing, interrupted only by a quiet hiccup or two.

“Night night, Daddy.”

At the door, he turned around and looked at his beautiful daughter, pink duvet tucked around her, and thought, how could I ever have doubted?

Loving his kids was easy.

He heard the clinking of dishes being washed downstairs.

Loving his wife - the right way - had proved too hard.

Back in the kitchen, he slid into one of the hard-backed chairs worn into a golden sheen by use. So many dinners at this table. 

“So what exactly happened?” 

Ginny glanced over her shoulder.

“I missed the train.”

“Oh, Harry.”

“Yeah. So I had to apparate up to Hogsmeade, walk to the castle.”

“I’m sure Al just loved having his famous dad appear at the sorting feast.”

Harry winced, then, remembering Jamie’s pleased (and mocking, yes, alright) face, grinned.

“So what house did Al get?”

Cripes. Harry had barely noticed, trying to get in and out as fast as possible. But he ran back through the evening and realized - 

“Well, he wasn’t at the table with Jamie.”

Gin’s shoulders tensed, and then she turned to face him and crossed her arms.

“He got Slytherin, didn’t he?”

Harry remembered, vaguely, a little blonde head next to his younger son’s unruly black hair. The memory, unprocessed at the time, hurt.

“Er.”

Ginny huffed a laugh.

“I suppose I’m not really surprised. He’s like you, after all. Quiet. Always something,” she settled down into the chair opposite him, “Always something running under the surface.”

“Gin -”

“It’s okay, Harry,” and she reached out her hand, and folded her fingers around his own, “I’ve made my peace with it.”

He gripped her hand.

“Nev was there.”

“Oh?” She pulled her hand back, not unkindly, and blushed a pale pink, “I suppose he would be.”

Harry studied her face, a face he truly loved, a face he had seen in happiness and in sorrow. More freckles, and the gentle lines of laughing, and that worry line, right between her eyebrows, which he thought was new.

“You should - you should owl him.”

“Yeah?” 

She met his eyes.

“And are you supposed to be giving your soon to be ex-wife dating advice?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. God, this was all so awkward. Ginny must have seen the tension, and her next comment was either friendly or a vicious barb.

“I noticed Malfoy at the platform.”

He looked up at her, fast. There was a little meanness around the fine lines of her eyes, but mostly he saw an undeserved tenderness.

“Let’s not pretend,” she reached out her hand again, got his fingers to uncurl, “We did that for too long.” 

They were quiet for a moment, the ticking of their kitchen clock - a twin of Molly’s, with hands for them and the kids and Teddy - the only sound in the room.

“I’m sorry,” he felt a pressure behind his eyes, “I wish - I wish I were different.”

Her voice was business-like, detached, “Are you going to owl him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it would do any good, now.”

“Harry,” she was picking at a spot on the table with her left thumbnail, “Even after - even though we didn’t work out - I do want you to be happy. If not with me, then…”

“That’s the thing, Gin,” and that pressure pushed harder, like every part of him was going to break, “I don’t know if I know how.”

“You really are an idiot,” her voice was fond, and what on earth did he do to deserve her kindness?

“No argument from me.”

He smiled across the table at her, and she smiled back.

“Well,” she stood up, “I’m going to bed. You alright on the couch?”

He wished he could hold on to her, on to this dream of what his life should have been.

But he also - for the first time - didn't.

“Yeah.”

As he unfolded his blankets that night and stretched out on the couch - squished and prodded and jumped on by every Weasley-Potter - he thought that he should be… something else. More sad. More angry, at least at himself. But he pulled the hand-crocheted afghan tightly around him, and he closed his eyes, and all he could think about was ice, and juniper, and velvet, and the smell of smoke.

Fiendfyre, cigarettes, records skipping as they reached their end. 

A wild-eyed boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Poison and Wine" by The Civil Wars. 
> 
> "You only know what I want you to  
> I know everything you don't want me to."


	5. Chapter 5

He had told everyone he was going to America. And he had meant to, but he got… waylaid.

Harry had never been anywhere or done anything. Well, he’d been to Scotland, of course, and he had killed Voldemort, which was probably more than other nineteen year old wizards had done. But that was just - that was the way his life went. 

Show up. Follow someone else’s plan. 

Die a little bit.

Get back up.

So now, after putting the castle back together, after going through the trials and finishing one last year of school - after fixing up Grimmauld for Andie and Teddy, and after a few sweet kisses with Gin (no real promises exchanged), Harry thought - 

I’m going to go somewhere. Where no one knows me. Where I can be a kid, for once in my miserable life.

Hermione arranged the portkeys - travel across the Atlantic took more than one. London to Belfast (“Because you might as well see a bit more of the British Isles, Harry”), then to Reykjavik, then Newfoundland, then New York City, where Kingsley’d arranged a bed sit for a couple weeks. And then a road trip. See the Grand Canyon. Throw down some galleons in the magic quarter of Las Vegas. Meet a movie star. Drink Mai Thais in San Francisco.

And all of that had sounded really, really good.

“Can’t believe you’re doing this, you lucky bugger.”

Ron and Hermione had, of course, showed up to see him off. Hermione had prepared his suitcase with an extension charm, and Ron had given him some dubious advice about picking up American women (“One hint of your accent and they’ll be lining up, you’ll see”) despite never, in fact, having met one. Ginny had talked about coming to wave him off, too, but she’d been asked to try out for the Harpies, and anyway…

Well, he had plenty of time to figure out what he wanted. After a bit of a world tour, and time on his own.

“Oh, Harry, you will be careful, won’t you?”

Hermione adjusted the collar of his shirt - newly bought and actually his size.

“Give him some space, ‘Mione. Our Harry knows what he’s doing.”

“I think I should be safe, Hermione,” he gave her a crooked grin, “I did sort of kill the darkest wizard of our age.”

“Yes, after you died,” she gave him a bit of a slap on his shoulder, and then her lips wobbled.

“And now I’ve done that, so I don’t have to do it again for a while.”

Ron put his arm around Hermione, and she relaxed into it. 

“You’re going to be alright,” she said, with a reasonable amount of conviction. 

“‘Course he will.”

Ron offered his hand for Harry to shake, then pulled him into a hug, pounding his back.

“Oi, unbruised, if you please.”

Hermione laughed.

“Okay, then. This portkey will take you -”

“I know, I’ll be in Belfast for about two hours and a half, then I’ll get the next portkey on.”

“Since you’ll be there,” she got a bit of a gleam in her eye - the one that always heralded ‘research,’ “You might as well see some of the murals. There are wizarding ones, you know.”

“Sure,” Harry looked up at Ron, who rolled his eyes from behind Hermione’s head.

“I heard that, Ronald.”

“You heard my eyes?!”

“Give it up, she’ll always know everything.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Hermione reached out and grabbed his hand, fast and tight.

“Just. Be careful, Harry.”

She was just worried about him. It was still - the war was still so close.

How could he tell her that this was - that he itched to get as far away from all of them as possible? He loved them all, but... She wanted to keep everyone right around her, to keep them safe. 

Harry knew there was no safe. So he’d find a new kind of danger, just in being by himself. No one to answer to. No closeness, no responsibilities.

No chance of the kind of love that holds you down. 

The portkey started to glow.

He took one last look at his best friends in the entire world, and maybe he should have felt a bit sad. But when he felt that hook, deep in him, of the portkey, he thought, thank fuck.

He landed with a stumble in the wizarding reception room of Belfast International Airport. 

A few curious glances were thrown his way, but he ducked his head before anyone could point and stare (“That’s Harry Potter!”) and, for lack of anything else to do, ran out to catch a black cab.

“Where to?”

He had no idea. He felt in his pocket for muggle money and yes, of course, Hermione had snuck in a piece of notebook paper with a list of murals. 

“Er,” he passed it up.

“Bit of a tour, then?”

“Yes, thanks.” 

At least he’d have something to report in his first owl back.

The driver kept up a running commentary in an almost impenetrable accent. Harry let his voice wash over him, staring out the window as the shipyards went by. He remembered something from a muggle history class - the shipyards had been bombed in the second world war. What the muggles hadn’t known was that Grindlewald played a part in those bombings, magic kicking up shrapnel of steel and coal. 

War was everywhere. It was eternal. 

Staring up at mural after mural, Harry felt that burden of war continue. People always found reasons for violence, muggles and wizards alike. They found ways to hate and hurt each other; they found in groups and out groups, gods and goddesses and politics and magic, excuses. Concepts to blame. 

Blood. Tradition. Faith.

How many people died because of immutable hatred?

And was this, this world, what he had died for?

“Where to next?”

The cabbie interrupted his wool-gathering. Harry, standing in the shade-cooled street, felt so tired.

“I dunno. I’m supposed to go back to the airport.”

“On and up?”

“Something like that.”

The driver leaned his head out of the window and gave Harry a penetrating stare.

“Or you could do something else.”

He frowned, “Yeah?”

“Go on, my shift’s about over. How’d you feel about a pint?”

Harry pulled out the watch that Molly had given him. He had half an hour before his next portkey.

And he felt… maybe he could go off the plan, a bit.

“Alright.”

“Name’s Aengus, by the way. And you?”

Ha. He was a muggle. He didn’t know…

“Harry,” he stuck out his hand, and they shook.

“Get in, then.”

They dodged through city traffic and pulled up in front of a cozy looking pub. Aengus flipped his light off.

Inside the pub, Harry noticed a shift, something different to the Leaky or the Three Broomsticks. It felt - there was a warmth, maybe. It was almost the way Hogwarts felt, as if magic were tingling along his skin - but these were just muggles, and this was just a muggle pub. But, he could hardly describe it, the place seemed… old. Like the earth was singing up to him.

A trad band in the corner was tuning up their instruments. Aengus ordered a couple of pints of Guinness, and Harry watched as the bartender poured them, slow and careful. 

“So tell me about yourself, Harry.”

He licked foam from his lips, the hint of grey whiskers catching drops of beer.

“Er, well, I’m on a gap year, I guess.”

“University next year?”

Harry didn’t think there was a good equivalent to, “I’m going into Auror training so I can track down dark wizards,” so he just nodded.

“Good job. But - I hope you don’t mind me saying so - you look like a man needs a new start in life. To do something a little unexpected.”

Harry opened his mouth, and then - 

“Oh sure, you’re thinking, a year off, that’ll do the job,” and Aengus took a healthy swallow of stout, “But I’ll bet you have a plan for this year. Everything decided. Your planes, your hostels, down to when you’ll wash your pants, am I right?”

He thought about the carefully scheduled - by Hermione - portkeys, the reserved - by an American Auror friend of Kingsley’s - bedsit, the folded - again by Hermione - new clothes in his case. Even going to Las Vegas was something that Seamus had suggested, and Harry had just… agreed.

And then he had the oddest thought. About Pansy Parkinson.

Parkinson, whom he’d spotted having too many cocktails with Blaise Zabini, and the few words he’d overheard the last time he was in the Three Broomsticks.

Draco. Ireland. Yes, Blaise, really. Cork.

Ran away. 

And then Harry was thinking about Draco, who he’d seen every day in eighth year. Draco, who - after that one meeting at the manor - totally ignored him, and withdrew from everyone else. Draco, who he couldn’t call Malfoy anymore, not even in his head. 

“Oh, I know that look.”

“What?” Harry blinked.

Aengus laughed and tossed back half a pint at once.

“Whoever she is, son, you’d better be after her.”

Harry nearly choked on his own beer.

“What?!”

“Ah well, you don’t need to play coy with me, but I’ll leave you your secrets,” and he winked, “But there’s something in you, Har, that’s calling out - for your other half, or for adventure, or maybe just to forget.”

Harry shrugged, a bit, and looked down at his soggy beer mat.

“Sure you’ll never find that with a plan. You just need to go.”

He pulled out his pocket watch one more time. 

He’d missed the portkey.

“I’m off home, now, my Caer is like to toss me out if I don’t get there in time for my tea. Should I drop you at the airport?”

His suitcase was shrunken in his pocket. His agenda was already tossed aside, at least until he could arrange a new portkey. He had stout in his belly. He had no one to answer to, and no where, really, to be.

And he had that overheard conversation. He told himself it was just - just natural curiosity. Maybe Draco was up to something, again. Maybe he was in danger. 

And he’d never been to Cork, after all.

He looked up at Aengus, and Aengus looked mildly back.

“Could you take me to a train station?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Bean An Fhir Rua" by the Chieftains. (Author's note: I listened to this on repeat for months after I came home from Ireland the first time. The song is water-logged with my teenaged tears. Yikes.)


	6. Chapter 6

The manor seemed even more cavernous without Scorpius.

Astoria had joined him - and his mother, cool as ever - for a restorative cup of tea before she apparated to her London flat. She’d moved the last of her belongings in January, but she had tried to spend as much time with Scorpius as possible before he went off to school. 

Now, without his son, without his wife, it was just Draco and his mother and a few house-elves. 

And the portraits.

He’d retired to his father’s - his, for these sixteen years - study. The black curtains over Lucius’s portrait were spelled shut, as usual, and his crystal snifter was waiting to be filled from a decanter of firewhiskey. 

But somehow, that wasn’t what he was in the mood for tonight.

Hidden behind a mouldy grimoire, on the bottom ledge of a built-in bookshelf, was a bottle of Black Bushmills. He moved the book, took up the bottle, and assessed the two inches remaining.

Almost finished, then. The fire, constantly lit, snapped and popped behind him as he tried to pour a measure in his snifter - and then dumped out the whole thing.

Life is fucking short, he thought.

Or too long. Either one, really.

That bottle had been there, waiting for him, a talisman, since he proposed marriage to Astoria. The paperwork finalized - galleons changing hands, a date set, a contract for siring an heir - he had snuck out of the manor and gone down to the off-license in the village. 

He stared at rows of bottles, shining in the light - clear, claret, amber, dusty green - and realized he had tried almost every liquor in the place. He was struck by an almost physical ennui. He was bored, tired of everything, his life settled and his fate sealed. And when he saw this bottle of whiskey, he remembered the first night that he and Harry had danced until sunrise.

He bought it.

And at every milestone he’d had a glass. That night, the betrothal. The bonding ceremony, elegant and sophisticated and passionless. An extra shot before he made love to her, and another glass when she fell pregnant. 

A double measure, when Harry was married, and another when he saw James’s birth announcement in the prophet.

The flavor - peat, smoke, herbs - was full of intensity, at first, because as he sipped it his mind was taken over by that night. Harry’s smell, Harry’s taste. Records playing. A soft rain. But as the years progressed, the whiskey started to taste like his life, now, with all the bitterness and numbness. He measured out his life in glasses of whiskey, and Harry’s life, too, and by now the flavor was dry as ash.

He picked up the glass, settled into a wingback chair in front of the fire.

To Scorpius, he thought, warmth blooming in his chest - the only thing he’d ever done right.

He took another swallow.

To Potter. And his small copy, forgotten robes and all. And to the tired look on Ginevra’s face.

He had learned not to be nasty, at least out loud. But here in his home, with his father snoring away behind black curtains, he felt a twisted satisfaction that he had been correct, after all.

“Draco,” his mother stood in the door.

“Mother,” he put down the glass, moving to stand in front of the empty bottle.

“Sit down and don’t bother,” she perched on the chair opposite, “I’ve known about that muggle whiskey for quite some time.”

Disappointed. She always looked disappointed in him.

“Yes, well,” he took another swallow, “We all have our vices, don’t we?”

“Indeed.” 

How did his mother still make him feel so small?

“I know you’re not happy with me, mum.”

She carefully pleated the edges of her damask robes.

“Oh?”

He nearly groaned in frustration, setting his glass down on a small table.

“Malfoy’s don’t divorce.”

He heard an odd choking sound, maybe a laugh, and his eyes shot up from his lap to her face.

“Oh Draco,” she shook her head, “Perhaps we should have.”

They both looked up to the veiled portrait, as if it could blow open and unleash…

“Mother!”

“You needn’t act so shocked. Our lives would have been - well, quite different, had I made different choices.”

He tried to imagine a life without Lucius. Without the cane, and the black cellar. Without the Dark Lord, and without the snake. A life where he’d gotten to know Andie before she was an old woman, and his cousin Dora before she had died. 

It seemed entirely absurd. And beautiful.

“Doesn’t do a lot of good, now.”

He picked up his glass again, slumping back into the tufted leather of his chair.

“I always -” she was staring into the fire, and he tried to reach her with his words like a little boy grabbing for his mum’s hand, “I thought you were disappointed in me. For the divorce.”

“Draco,” her eyes were soft around the edges, “You gave me a grandchild. You’ve raised him very well - better than we did, you. Astoria as your wife, or not, you’ve made our family proud.”

“Oh.”

“But I do find myself -”

He fiddled with the short stem of his glass, knowing that something unpleasant was coming, as it usually did.

“Draco,” he looked up, “I am not disappointed. But I am sad, for your sake.”

“Really,” his teenage drawl tried to make an appearance.

“Draco,” a bit of reproval, “Not because of the end of your marriage. But because you felt you had to enter into it at all.”

He nearly dropped the glass, a bit of whiskey sloshing over the edge.

“I should have known, as your mother. We never spoke of our,” she cleared her throat, “Our inner workings. I trusted that, as the head of the family, you could choose the right path. And I did not question, out of my own cowardice, I suppose, why you came back.”

“Mother -”

“And you do not need to explain it. You are a man grown. We cannot change the past. But Draco,” she leaned forward in her chair, and he did, too, their faces so close, “You’ve been so terribly unhappy.”

He took a deep breath.

“You know I love my son. I would never change that.”

“I do know. Praise the Goddess for giving him to us,” and then her voice was stern, commanding, “But now, now that you are no longer married, now that your son is in school - now I’ll speak freely, and tell you…”

He nearly whispered, “What, mum?”

“Be happy. Just be happy. Whatever that means.”

He felt a tear gather in the corner of his eye. As it fell, she brushed it away with the tissue-paper tenderness of her lined fingers.

“I care for you, Draco. So you must make me proud.”

“Father wouldn’t -”

“Fuck your father,” her voice was cold as steel, and he gasped, choking on air, “Forgive me my crudeness. But fuck him right down into his grave.”

She clasped his shaking hands.

“I should have been braver, Draco. So you will have to do better than I did.”

“I’ve never been brave, Mum.”

“Well, then,” she laughed a little and gave his hands a final squeeze, “Now is the perfect time to start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Motion Picture Soundtrack" by Vitamin String Quartet.


	7. Chapter 7

He lit the next cigarette with the burning butt of the last.

Six in the morning, and the sun was on its way to rising. Draco’s head was still a bit thick from last night - a group of American girls had bought him a couple of shots of Jameson before they figured out that he would definitely not be going home with any of them. 

“Sorry, you’re not exactly my type,” he’d shouted in an upturned ear.

She looked at him, perplexed, “Blonde?”

“That too,” he laughed, “But no.”

He made an extravagant gesture in his chest region. And a bit of a disgusted face.

For a moment, he’d worried. And then the group of girls broke out into giggles, and the petite redhead yelled out, “You should meet my brother!” And all was well.

That was when they started drinking tequila. 

“Oh, gods,” he massaged his neck with his left hand, the muscles coiled up into knots.

Finishing his second cigarette, he wedged himself into the closet-shaped shower, not waiting for the cold water to heat up. A quick scrub with Tesco-brand soap, a brush of his teeth, and he fluffed his hair with a threadbare towel before running a bit of pomade - his last luxury - through the asymmetrical strands.

It had taken him a while to get used to living without magic. Oh, he could still do it - his wand, so memorably returned, was tucked under the mattress - but he just… he didn’t see the point, really. He’d wanted to live a different sort of life. A muggle life. 

If he had been a muggle, he would probably have been happier. 

He pulled the lapels of his jacket up around his ears and began the walk down into the city centre. His flat was up the hill above the university, and it was a nice twenty minutes or so to his job. 

Yeah, I have a job, he thought. He imagined his father’s pinched face behind the bars of Azkaban. That’s right, father. I’m a fucking cleaner.

He’d been lucky, actually. In that first week - living off the small purse of galleons he’d managed to grab before leaving the manor - he wasn’t sure how he would survive. But he had ended up going out, night after night, and he usually ended up at Chambers when the pubs closed and the nightclubs opened. 

His first gay bar. 

He smirked at himself, walking along, thinking about those first moments when he could just be. Be Draco, not Malfoy, and gay as a fucking maypole. It was absolutely terrifying. He’d gone a bit mad with it.

On his fifth night, he’d actually fallen asleep in the loo, which is where the day manager found him that morning. He’d shouted and cussed, Draco had screamed a bit, and then Colin looked at him - he was probably too thin, and worn out, and pitiful - and he said, “You’d might as well make yourself useful,” and handed him a bin liner.

Draco never knew he’d be so grateful for the opportunity to clean up other people’s messes. 

It wasn’t great money but for now it was enough. And Colin had just started him on other tasks - he had some ideas about events and publicity - and most of all he felt useful, which was an entirely new sensation. 

Draco stopped off for a coffee with too much cream - the only form of calories he could consume this early - and noticed a bit of movement behind him, the feeling of interested eyes on the back of his neck. He gave a saucy smile to his favorite barista and turned - but he just saw the door to the cafe swing shut.

He had moments like this. When he felt like he was being followed. As if his past were a person, chasing him.

Usually, that feeling edged out of his consciousness as he went through his routine. He was here, in Cork, working hard, partying harder, getting the bare minimum of sleep necessary, consuming ridiculous amounts of caffeine and nicotine. Life was rough and dirty and really quite good, as long as he had accepted that it was bad, deliciously. That the only person he was harming was himself. 

But today, as he made his way towards Chambers’ dim doorway, he felt that thing, following him. Something that should have been buried.

He turned, just once, as he went into the bar. 

And Harry fucking Potter ducked around the corner. 

His heart seized up, his mouth watered, and he longed for a third cigarette.

Something that should have been buried, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Youth" by Daughter. 
> 
> "And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones  
> 'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs  
> Setting fire to our insides for fun  
> Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong  
> The lovers that went wrong"


	8. Chapter 8

Ron and Hermione’s was exactly as he would have imagined if he had tried to picture it when they left school. Organized, beautiful, comfortable, and warm.

And packed with books.

Harry wiped his hands, already sweating, on his trousers, as he stepped through the door. Long, crammed bookshelves lined the hall, and on the opposite wall were family portraits and candid snapshots - Rosie as a baby, and then flying her first training broom (and falling off). Molly and Arthur captured in a rare moment of romance, kissing in the back garden of the Burrow. Hugo on chubby legs chasing Crookshanks, who seemed to be practically immortal. Harry and Ginny and their kids. George, Angelina. 

Fred.

“Back here!” Ron called from the kitchen.

They’d invited him over, yesterday, as they’d waved the kids off. He’d agreed, missing them terribly, but then…

He kept waiting for Ron to hate him.

Hugo was more than big enough, now, to sit without a high chair. He had parchment and crayons in front of him, and an almost empty plate of biscuits. Harry grabbed the half that Hugo was about to drop on the floor - just for something to do - and then stood there, awkwardly, before he shoved it in his mouth.

It was wet. How nice.

Ron was bustling at the stove, making sure that Hermione’s dinner was still warm and ready. 

“Go on.”

Harry sat. 

There were a few moments of silence.

He stuffed his mouth with another biscuit.

Oh, God. 

It’s not as if they hadn’t spent any time together since he and Ginny had decided to divorce. Of course, Ron and Hermione had been told right away. And they were good to him, even though - even though they knew the reasons why. But he felt a tightness in his stomach, here in this warm place where he and Gin had shared meals so many times, and he hardly knew what to do with himself. 

He was broken.

“Glad you came, mate.”

His eyes widened, “Thanks. Er, me too.”

Silence. Ron stirred a pot. 

And then he heard the door opening again. Hermione swept in from the front hall, dumping her robes on a kitchen chair. Hugo lifted his arms for a hug, and she started to hug him back - and then saw icing sugar all over his face.

“Oh Christ, Ron, what have you let him eat?”

“Hello to you too,” she glared at him, “And just a couple of biscuits!”

“A couple! I had two dozen here," a frown, "And now?”

“Harry had some!”

“Yeah,” Harry coughed. The one. And a half. A soggy half.

“Ugh, well, if he wakes up in the night he’s all yours, Ronald.”

“Yes, love.”

Hermione crossed to the range and peered at him, trying to guess how many biscuits her husband had eaten, “And if you wake up with a sore stomach in the night, you’d better leave me out of that, too.”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

She looked rather fierce for a moment, and he looked like a dressed-down schoolboy. And then Hermione cracked, laughing, and kissed him on his crumby mouth.

They were perfect together.

“God, I want that.” 

He didn’t expect to speak, but the words came out, and he couldn’t get them back in.

Hermione wiped her lips, “Hmm?”

Ron turned round, sat, and waited. Harry shrugged and looked away.

“I’m sorry, I just -”

“It’s alright, Harry. We did ask you over.”

Ron’s face was honest and open, as it always had been. Harry took a breath and kept going.

“The way - the way you are together. That thing you have, where you love each other even when you annoy the sh-,” he looked down at Hugo, wide eyes staring back, “When you argue. It’s always been - you’re meant to be. And I wanted that.”

“Thought you could have it with Ginny, you mean.”

He looked up at Ron, still tall even sitting at the table. There was a roughness to his voice, but also an understanding. And it was difficult, jumping right into this conversation, but they had been friends for so long that it flowed out of him.

“Yeah. Because - Ron, I did love her. I do, I swear. I thought - we got through the war, and she’d been waiting, and I wanted…”

Hermione’s voice was quiet, “You wanted a home.”

He picked up one of Hugo’s crayons - green, with paper peeling away - and clutched it in his fingers.

His voice was soft and miserable.

"Yeah."

“You know,” Ron pondered in his slow, deliberate way, "There are different kinds of meant to be, I think.”

The corner of Hermione’s mouth curled up, the way it always did when Ron was about to say something uncharacteristically profound.

“I mean, ‘Mione and me, we didn’t exactly get on right away.”

“Well, we were friends, Ronald.”

“Yeah, but you also set those birds on me.”

“And I would again, if I had to,” she smirked.

“I have no doubt,” and he smiled at her, hopelessly transparent in his affection, “But you saw it, Harry, before we did, that we were meant to - to end up here.

“‘Cause you saw it from the outside. And that’s a good story, that kind of meant to be, but that’s not what it feels like from the inside.”

Harry frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“I hated him,” that was Hermione, interrupted by an injured, “Oi!” from Ron, “Oh, yes, it wasn’t real hate, but I... wanted him and wanted that feeling to stop and - and Ronald, I love you dearly, but you were not exactly easy to deal with in school.”

He felt a laugh at the back of his throat and pushed his glasses back up his nose, shrugging in Ron’s direction. Ron, of course, shrugged back and picked up the last biscuit from the tea tray.

In between bites, he said, “That’s what I mean, then. And, my darling wife,” she blushed, “You weren’t always so pleasant, yourself. So we were -”

“You were a mess,” Harry interrupted, and he realized it was true.

So much of those years, with his two best friends, was watching them snipe, be jealous, be possessive - reject each other, need each other. The three of them were busy saving the world (and if he were completely honest, it was probably Hermione doing the bulk of the saving) but they were also - Ron and Hermione - they struggled. They fought. 

It probably felt awful. And yet it was so obvious, from the outside, that they were meant to be together.

A dim and long-buried truth began to emerge before him.

“See, he’s getting it now,” Ron mock-whispered.

“Oh, my God,” he ran his hands through his hair.

“I think you’re right, Ron.”

“Always the tone of surprise.” Harry heard the sound of a weak thwap of Hermione’s hand on Ron’s stomach. And then an “oof!” as all those biscuits were probably unsettled.

“So you - you’re trying to tell me -” he could barely put the words together. How -

“How long have you known?”

They shared one of those looks that only long-time partners can share. Ron tilted his head, and Hermione spoke first.

“About you? I guessed in third year.”

“What?” Harry didn’t think of himself as much of a squawker, but that had not been a dignified noise. Hugo giggled.

“Oh, yes,” she passed Hugo another sheet of parchment for doodling, “And I knew about him…”

God, they were really talking about this. 

“Around the triwizard tournament. Fourth year.”

“Did you,” he spread out his hands, “I don’t know, think about telling me?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Honestly, what good would it have done?”

Rather a lot, he imagined.

“No, I know it sounds mental, but Hermione’s right,” great, Ron, too, “It took longer for me to figure it out - right about the time of the trials, for me - but I thought…” 

Oh Merlin, his friends were killing him.

“You thought I’d be alright stumbling along? Marrying Gin? Having three children? When I’m meant to...” he trailed off, shoulders tense.

“You said it yourself, mate,” Ron shrugged again, frowned, “I know you really do love her. Goddess knows you’re a great dad. I thought it would be enough, even if…”

“Yeah, even if.”

He couldn’t really be angry. Not at them, at least. 

He’d fooled them all, and himself. And it was another stupid thing about adulthood that he should’ve figured out earlier. 

You can’t make someone into your happily ever after. Even if you love them - simply, quietly, completely. A part of you will always know. 

Some part of you - the jagged parts - 

He suddenly remembered one night, around one thirty in the morning, when he and Draco had stepped out of their club into the alley. Draco had convinced Colin to set up fairy lights and a few tables, but this night - a Saturday in July - the entire walkway was crammed with people, and the music flowing out of the club was blasting at maximum volume, and the whole place smelled of apples and malt and tar and hash. They’d been trying to find a space to talk, but a crowd of drunk university kids pushed Draco right up against Harry, Harry right up against the wall. 

Bowie’s “Rock 'n' Roll With Me” came on. One more shove from behind, and Draco’s thigh was between Harry’s legs, and Harry’s head fell back against the brick, and somehow all of that emptiness, all of the horror, all of the burdens, all of the dead - they were nothing. It was just a mizzling rain and golden light and the muscle of Draco’s thigh and the realization that yes, this. This man. This place. 

They moved against each other, trying not to draw attention, trying desperately not to laugh, and Harry came so hard that his vision blacked out around the edges.

He had never been happier.

And he had never, not for one moment - not when she kissed him before he left for work, not when they placed Jamie in his bassinet, not when they celebrated Christmas with all the Weasleys, not even when he watched her fly with her red hair burning up the blue sky - felt that way about Ginny. 

“Well,” Hermione interrupted his internal monologue, and not before time - he was dangerously close to crying, “I think it’s about time to put this little one to bed.”

She picked up Hugo, tucking a few curls behind his ears, and then leaned over to kiss Harry’s cheek.

“You’re going to be alright, Harry. So is Ginny,” Hugo squirmed, and she looked like she might turn away, but then she placed a firm hand on his shoulder, “You did the right thing, after all.”

“Thanks, ‘Mione.”

He blinked and cleared his throat. Ron let him compose himself, getting a couple of lagers from the fridge.

“Go on,” he twisted the cap off and handed over a beer.

“Fuck, Ron. I’ve been so stupid.”

“‘S’all right,” he took a big pull on his bottle, “Reckon you have a right to be, every once in a while.”

Harry laughed, a little bitter, “Yeah?”

“Well, you did save the world and all.”

“Merlin knows how.”

They looked at each other and grinned, and said in tandem - 

“Hermione.”

When he left the Granger-Weasley’s that night, he was tipsy, wrung out, and lighter than he had been in years. 

One horrible conversation done with, he thought. 

Now on to the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Rock 'n' Roll With Me" by David Bowie. 
> 
> "When you rock and roll with me  
> No one else I'd rather be  
> Nobody here can do it for me  
> I'm in tears again  
> When you rock and roll with me"


	9. Chapter 9

This was a terrible idea.

Truth be told, he had in his life possessed many terrible ideas. Rejecting Snape’s help (however begrudgingly given) with Occlumency ranked high as one of his worst, given that it ended with the death of one of the only people who ever loved him.

And, it turned out, most of his preconceived notions about Snape were wrong. 

It was an uncomfortable thing to acknowledge that someone could hate you, and you could hate them, and it didn’t really matter at all. Snape was a hero, Harry was an idiot, and the world kept turning.

But this - his idea to follow Malfoy yet again - was completely, definitely, and staggeringly terrible.

Harry leaned up against the brick building around the corner from where he’d watched Malfoy duck into a closed club. His heart was racing and his hands were sweaty. He rubbed his dry eyes, still sandy from the few snatches of sleep he caught on the train. 

It was a miracle that he’d found Malfoy at all. 

He’d wandered for a quite a while after stepping off the train, and found himself ducking into a small cafe, desperate for coffee. It never occurred to him that he’d be able to find Malfoy on the very first morning of the very first day - it was as if the universe decided to give him what he had wanted, but without any adequate preparation. He wondered if his life was just destined to be him, Harry freaking Potter, bumbling along and finding trouble at the most inopportune of moments. 

God, his hair was probably a mess. Harry stood up straight and caught his reflection in a shop window. 

“Fuck.”

He tried, without success, to flatten his hair.

He slumped. Oh well. 

Why, you know, on earth, had he decided to do this? He shook his head to clear it and decided that his little - this odd turn of events - was a problem for a different Harry. Some later version of himself who’d maybe gotten a few more hours of sleep. And breakfast. 

It was still early, barely anyone passing him on the pavement. He stuck his hands in his pockets and felt his shrunken suitcase, and realized that if he didn’t want to sleep rough - in an unfamiliar city, no less - he’d have to find someplace to stay.

Gods bless Hermione for setting him up with a muggle credit card.

So he walked. 

He’d noticed very little, stumbling to the cafe, and noticed nothing at all after seeing Malfoy’s shining blonde hair. But now he took stock of the city, just on the edge of wakefulness. The air was fresh, with a hint of damp, like a cool bath on a hot day. It felt like a city that came alive at night - he noticed pub crammed up next to pub, boxes of red flowers lining gold-painted windows. White and purple weeds bloomed between the grey stones of a low wall, a river running through, down past a hill and deeper into the city.

He crossed the river, took a turn - entirely on some unknown instinct - and found himself in front of a large, Victorian building. The Metropole Hotel.

It looked cozy - though a bit nicer than he was used to - and he shrugged as if to say, what the hell. I’ve got the galleons. And it’s probably cheaper than playing blackjack in Las Vegas. 

Once he’d gotten into his room, he fell straightaway onto soft white linen and down-stuffed pillows.

I’ve come a long way from that damned cupboard, he thought. 

Before he sank into sleep, he remembered flashes of golden hair and pale skin, and he was too tired to question the soft smile that he pressed into the mattress.

…..

He’d let Hermione pick out his new clothes.

He was going to kill her.

Years of wearing either Dudley’s hand me downs or flowing school robes had made him… unaccustomed to clothes which fit properly. And maybe it was just him, but it seemed a bit unnecessary that his jeans hug his bum (and such) with this level of, er, snugness. 

The shirt wasn’t much better. He could see, as he stared in the mirror, the muscles he’d put on while rebuilding Hogwarts. He wasn’t - it wasn’t obscene, or anything, but he was a lot more fit than he had been after so many years with the Dursleys, or after camping in the woods and eating whatever scraps they had left. 

He looked - well, he looked good. And uncomfortable. 

He had slept through most of the day, and in an uncharacteristic surrender to luxury he had ordered room service. A ridiculous amount of food, actually. 

And now he stood, regarding himself in his too-tight clothes, debating his next steps.

It wouldn’t be weird, would it? He was nineteen, and he’d been pretty preoccupied with fighting evil for basically his whole life, so it would make sense, wouldn’t it, for him to go to a nightclub. And he did know where a nightclub was, after all - and the fact that he knew about that because he’d seen Malfoy go in was just a coincidence. 

And if he saw Malfoy, that would be… good. He shook his head. Fine. It would be fine. 

He had been right about Cork coming alive at night. Young people spilled out of every doorway, it seemed - university aged men with cigarettes hanging at the corners of their mouths, the women with them in neon high heels and shockingly short skirts. It was loud and jarring and rich with scents, cologne, sweat, bright red geraniums, clove and hashish. And no one seemed to know him, as he ducked through crowds and kept his eyes wide open. He was just another kid, out on a Saturday night, not wonderful, remarkable, cursed, coveted. 

Just him. Just Harry. 

He took a deep breath before opening the door to the bar - Malfoy’s bar. 

I’m going to do this. He set his shoulders. For no particular reason.

Music slammed into him with an almost physical force. It was dark, that darkness pierced by flashes of colored lights reflecting on shimmering bodies coated in soft glitter. The dance floor was packed, people writhing against each other, and it was three deep at the bar. 

And he needed a drink, he thought, suddenly, if he was going to get through this. 

Fifteen minutes later and he’d acquired some sort of blue concoction which tasted like coconut and orange. He tried to take small sips, pacing himself, and then he noticed -

Oh. Most of the people on the dance floor were men. 

He drank half his cocktail at once.

Hard, lean muscle skimmed and slipped, hands dipping into the backs of trousers. Tousled hair brushed against arched necks as bodies were embraced from behind. All that glitter - eyes lined with kohl seemed to speak promises, intent. Some of what he saw could be called dancing, and it was - it was almost carefully coordinated, like the ballet, like war, and it was filthy like fucking, and Harry cursed as his jeans felt tighter. 

No, no. Please, he thought, this was not - not what I was looking for.

He finished his drink.

And then he saw him.

He was, of course, in the middle of the press of bodies, and he shone brighter than anyone there. If the other dancers were like ballet, he was like flying. The soft fall of his hair was disheveled - Harry had never seen it like this, because his hair had always been so meticulously gelled - and brushing over his eyes. His long limbs wrapped around the neck of a shorter brunet in front of him - muscled arms twined around him, from behind, as another man grinded against his back. And he was breathing, heavy, the way Harry had started to breathe - Harry’s exhale was his inhale, and Harry wanted to feel that breath on the soft skin below his jaw, and exchange something with him, blows, barbs, something more, something he had never let himself think about.

Something he had felt when he had stared at Malfoy’s dot on the Marauder’s Map, something that had made him throw the map down and shove his hand under the covers and bite his own left knuckles and -

Malfoy was turning towards him.

Harry ran.

He pushed through more muscled bodies and ran to the toilets, blessedly empty. He leaned over the sink and breathed, breathed, tried to screw up his eyes against what he had already seen. 

Get it together, Harry. Stop. Just -

The door opened behind him. Harry kept his eyes closed. He heard the door swing shut again, and then he heard it lock. 

“I suppose I should be gratified that it’s you having a meltdown in the toilet this time, Potter.”

Oh, gods. 

“Nothing to say?”

He turned around, fast enough to make him dizzy, and reached for his wand. 

“Hmm. Going to curse me again?”

Malfoy stood there, calm, leaning against the wall. Hands in his pockets. No wand.

He was beautiful.

“Leave me alone, Malfoy.”

He laughed, damn him.

“I rather think I should be telling you to leave me alone. I don’t remember inviting you here.”

Harry’s hand was beginning to shake, he was holding his wand so hard. 

“I didn’t -”

Malfoy scoffed.

“Did you really imagine that I didn’t spot you this morning?”

Harry felt his face grow hot. Draco smirked.

“You’re rubbish at sneaking around without your cloak.”

“What are you doing here?” 

His voice was too loud, rough. Harry had meant - he didn’t know what he'd meant. Here, in Cork? In what seemed to be a gay bar? In the toilets, with him?

“You -” Draco’s eyes were wide, “What am I… Potter, this is… Oh honestly,” then he rolled his eyes, “Curse me, or don’t. Just figure out what to do with your wand.”

Harry had the sudden and utterly mortifying urge to laugh.

“Fine,” Draco removed his hands from his pockets, standing up straight, “I’ll make it easy for you.”

“Wha-”

“Maybe you want to see it better, hmm? Where to aim.”

It was like a dream - a nightmare. Draco unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and then kept going. Inches of creamy skin were revealed. Harry’s mouth was dry. Draco’s long fingers finished with the last button, then pushed the shirt aside.

“Like what you see?”

Draco’s face was tight - teasing, but not.

“It’s your handiwork, after all.”

Harry looked at his chest. Really looked.

Long, thin scars traveled from the dip of his right hip to the inner edge of his left clavicle. They’d long since healed, but Harry could tell that the scars would never go away. Draco would bear Harry’s mark as long as he bore the other on his arm. 

Something in Harry’s jeans twitched.

What the fuck.

Draco’s eyes widened.

“You do, don’t you? Like what you see.”

“No, I - look, I’m sorry, I -”

“I don’t think you are. I think you liked doing this to me, Potter,” he spat his name, then smirked, “I think you want me on my knees for you.”

The air was entirely still. A heavy bass thrummed around them. The lights flickered, graffiti shining on the walls.

And Draco Malfoy dropped to the floor.

Oh, Merlin.

“You’ve always wanted this, haven’t you, Potter? Me, submitting to you. Begging. Groveling.”

Draco moved forward until he was right there, under Harry. Harry stared down at his upturned face, his irises almost entirely black. 

“Go on, Potter. You going to curse me? Hit me?”

Draco leaned in, just those last few inches, and breathed hotly against Harry’s jeans.

“Or is there something else?”

He’d stopped breathing, that must have been it - that was why he was so dizzy, and why he gasped out, “Fuck, Malfoy.”

Malfoy laughed. And then rubbed his pale, smooth face against Harry’s denim-encased prick - which was harder than it had ever been.

“Merlin, you just had to be hung, didn’t you,” he muttered entirely to himself, “How the fuck are you fitting in those jeans?”

Harry was in extreme danger of falling over.

“Should I get you out of them?”

He couldn’t remember, later, if he’d nodded, but he would always remember the whimper which was unmistakable for, “yes, please, fuck.”

Draco slid his hands up Harry’s legs, slow, agonizing, and reached the button of his jeans.

And then he caught Harry’s eyes, and grinned.

“Well, I’m not going to.”

He stood, too quick for Harry to catch the movement, and walked to unlock the door.

“I don’t know why you followed me here, Potter. Maybe you’re having some sort of post-war crisis - frankly, I don’t particularly care.

“But if you come back, it’ll be you begging,” the lock clicked open, and Malfoy turned back and fucking winked, “And I won’t stop.”

The door to the toilets slammed closed. 

Harry apparated to his hotel room with a violent crack. 

He nearly fell on his face trying to pull down the too-tight jeans, but when he wrapped his hand around his swollen, neglected prick, it took two swift pulls before he came, shuddering, imagining Malfoy’s filthy red mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "World Falls Apart" by Dash Berlin, Jonathan Mendelsohn, Jorn Van Deynhoven. 
> 
> "When the world falls apart  
> If you should ever feel so broken that you can't go on  
> If your world falls apart  
> I will hold you in my arms like a friend"


	10. Chapter 10

“Dad,

I made it! Of course, I wasn’t really worried, family tradition and all that. 

The Slytherin dorms are really cool, you were right. Some of the other first years were scared because a grindylow swam up to the window and pulled horrible faces but of course I wasn’t, Dad. Even if Auntie Pants’ daughter says I grabbed her hand. Which I didn’t. Because Hyacinthe is a liar, and not very cunning really

Did you know that HARRY POTTER’s son is in my year? He’s got Slytherin too. And he’s got the bed next to mine, and I think he’s the smartest in our year (other than me) because he had SO MANY BOOKS IN HIS TRUNK Dad, really. 

I think he’s my best friend at Hogwarts so far, though I have to meet more people, and Hya is my other best friend but honestly, she’s such a girl sometimes. Holding my hand because of grindylows…

Anyway, I like it here. I like the great hall and the pumpkin juice a LOT and I think Al snuck in an invisibility cloak so we’re going to come up with a lot of really cunning plans just like you did

Love you Dad

(And don’t spend too much time alone, maybe you should get a best friend like Al)”

Draco laughed as he let Scorpius’s owl fall into his lap.

Of course.

The only thing he had wanted out of Hogwarts - Potter’s friendship - slipped out of his grasp due to his own stupidity. But his son - 

His son was a good kid. And he had a Potter’s friendship without even really trying. Just by being himself.

Draco was sat at the desk in his suite of rooms - where he usually went through all personal post before beginning his day. He took these extra moments to lounge around in his favorite French terry dressing gown, the smell of verbena and juniper bubbles flowing in from the en suite bath, a cup of espresso steaming within reach.

Yes, he had lived a rough life for several years. Yes, he could do it, and he did it well.

Yes, those were some of his sweetest, most delicious memories.

But great mother goddess above, now that he could live a life of luxury, he would do it to the hilt. 

He placed Scorpius’s letter to the side, opening a few others - a quick note from Pansy (he really should get Scorpius to stop calling her Auntie Pants, but it was just too wonderful), excited about Hyacinthe’s sorting. A letter from Greg, who was still fiddling around with chocolates in Belgium (and who was rather good at it). A few paragraphs - in non-linear, abstract form - from Luna, who still seemed to like him all these years later.

And there on the bottom of the stack, an owl in terribly familiar writing.

Draco’s hands shook, just a little, as they broke the seal.

“Draco --

I don’t know how to - 

It was nice running into you (literally, I suppose) yesterday, though it wasn’t exactly something I’d planned out. I don’t know if you heard, but I’m -”

Quite a bit of text scribbled out there. Draco felt his shoulders inching towards his ears. He closed his eyes, breathed out, and skipped down to what was legible.

“Look, I don’t want to say all this in an owl. And I know I don’t deserve any of your time, after… everything. But I’d really like to see you. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? 

Please say yes.

Harry

(Oh, and I’ve gotten an owl from Albus in which he emphatically expresses to me that your son is magic’s gift to wizardkind. You should probably get coffee with me if only to prepare for future playdates.)” 

He dropped the letter to his desk and shot back his espresso.

Just like Potter, he thought. Bumbling, inexpressive, and manipulative.

He had promised himself. When Harry left - and then when Lucius died, and when he decided to come back to the manor and start a family - Draco had promised himself that he wouldn’t let it hurt, anymore. He’d see Potter’s face in the paper, hear his name on the wireless, and sure, he’d have a drink, maybe remember a thing or two, but he wouldn’t let it -

He was too damned old to feel like this. Like something in him was shattering. Like he couldn’t breathe. 

Draco stood, stripping off his robe and hanging it behind the bathroom door. He slid into the tub - built to be large enough for two, though he’d never shared it with anyone. Bubbles reached all the way to his chin. He closed his eyes.

He had to make the hurt go away.

So he remembered something else.

He moved his hand down his body, running over lithe muscle, over soft, fine hair. He felt himself grow hard. He tried to put together images, not a person - a mouth, open; unruly hair, pulled under his fingers; tanned skin, sweating; music, smoke, darkness; a choking sound, as he pushed too deep, over and over…

His hand sped up, and gods, this was better than thinking about -

A scar, reddened in the heat of the club, and green eyes like apples, and glasses digging into him, and fuck, that mouth, the way it hated him sometimes, and the way he plowed into it - 

Laughing at dawn and the too-small bed and birdsong

Slow dancing, high as fuck, in that shitty flat, cans of cider attracting flies

Singing along with the trad band at Art’s and shots of goldschlager and pulling down the back of his jeans and

And that time they fucked in the hotel when Harry ordered champagne and

Harry when he slid home for the first time and the way he looked

Harry, fuck, and the sounds he made in the alley and

Harry, when he said I love you and and

Draco came with a cry. 

Fuck you, Potter. He dunked his head under the water, and if there were any tears they washed away, down into the drain.

Cleaned, dried, groomed, and calmed, he sat at his desk. He picked up his favorite quill. And he scrawled out a reply that he already regretted.

“Potter,

Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers. 
> 
> "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone  
> Only darkness every day  
> Ain't no sunshine when she's gone  
> And this house just ain't no home  
> Anytime she goes away"


	11. Chapter 11

“Again, please.”

9:30 and the sun was just beginning to set. Art’s was packed with American exchange students, and Draco was going shot for shot with a short, curvaceous girl with a Long Island accent. She was covered with tattoos, and he’d pretended not to be bothered when she reached out and touched his mark.

Muggles. They usually thought it was cool, and for a few moments he allowed himself to believe them.

And then he felt filthier.

Liam at the bar was making some layered concoction of grenadine, blue curacao, and goldschlager, and he could feel the alcohol starting to course through him, and he felt at his back pocket for his crumpled pack of Marlboro lights. Wednesday night, trad about to start, and he hoped he’d be just drunk enough to shake off the memories of last night. 

He licked his lips, feeling gold leaf under his tongue, and he thought about tight jeans and a thick cock and the look on his face, pained and desperate and hungry, and the way his mouth watered, and the brief moment when he’d considered unzipping those trousers, and -

He’d always wanted Harry Potter.

And he didn’t know when wanting him bruised and bloody on the floor changed into - into the other thing, the shameful thing, the thing that kept him up at night. But it seemed like it happened all at once, naturally, like water breaking through a dam to revert to its natural course. And then he couldn’t think of Potter without imagining what it would feel like - to have him under him and in him, to hold his hands down, to pull him into dark corners, to have him whisper, please.

The American girl, Britt, held up another red white and blue shot. They cheered - a muddled “Slainte!” - and tossed them back. Liam rolled his eyes and set up the next round. 

Draco had needed a few hours away from the club - he hoped that Chambers wouldn’t now remind him of looking up at Potter from the cold concrete of the toilet floors. So he came here, to Art’s, Wednesday night with the band and the kids who seemed so much younger than he felt. A palate cleanser, like parsley sorbet between rich courses of duck fat and cream. 

He looked over at the guitar player, who flushed under his hot gaze, and he let himself remember the night when he first discovered this bar - another Wednesday - and the way those calloused fingers scraped the soft skin of his hips, the way his hot mouth opened and enveloped Draco, the way his voice grew rough as he sang “Fisherman’s Blues.”

Maybe tonight, when the bar closed down at midnight, maybe he’d take that nameless guitarist and -

Draco pulled back. As delicious as that sounded, it suddenly didn’t seem like it was enough.

Fuck Potter, he thought. Fuck.

“Come on, can’t quit now!”

Shot number four. Britt gasped at the toxic combination, then reached up and pulled him into a sloppy kiss.

Laughing, he pulled away, leaning down to whisper, “I don’t like girls, sorry.”

“I don’t like boys, darlin’, but you just looked so sad.”

He looked down at her, surprised. She shrugged, and then he shrugged back.

Americans.

The band started up in earnest, and by now all of the students had memorized the set, all the words of the songs, and the room was filled with the not altogether in tune shout-singing of drunken voices. Britt started in on a bottle of Bulmers pear cider, and Draco leaned back against the bar and just - watched. 

They all seemed so painfully young.

He had no real right to think that, but as he observed clumsy flirtation and excessive drinking and a bit of groping in dark corners he wondered if any of these kids knew, had even the slightest perception of how the world had almost ended. He figured that they all had their own stories - heartbreak, boyfriends and girlfriends back home that they pretended they weren’t cheating on, parents who maybe didn’t love them enough, papers to write and promises to keep. But how many of them could have possibly known that, if not for one stupid orphaned boy with cheap glasses and a huge fucking prick, it turned out, they’d be slaves to the darkest wizard of all time. They’d be chattel. They’d be nothing. 

All of those dreams broken. And he had worked towards that end. At one time, he had wanted them dead.

He looked at Britt’s sweet, round face, and imagined it lifeless and grey. Fuck. 

He had been a monster.

The grenadine grew sickly sweet in his mouth. He ordered a shot of Jameson and loved the burn, like punishment, like cauterization, like a flaming brand of his sins and the way to forget them. 

He couldn’t stay here.

…..

He wanted to sweat it all out, all the alcohol and all the pain, and then he wanted to drink it up again and vomit it up at sunrise. 

The club was busy for a Wednesday. He’d wasted no time getting to the centre of the dance floor, and he let his body move, almost mindlessly, to the bass which seemed to echo in his chest. He felt eyes on him from every direction, and he let himself experience fear and rage against it, reveling in the danger of possibilities. A pain he could control. A pain he inflicted on himself. 

Some of the eyes were more intense than others. The closely cropped hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he licked his lips, and he knew without needing to look that Harry Potter had come back.

But he did look.

And there he was, in another tight t-shirt - green this time, Jesus fuck, like every dark fantasy he’d ever had staring up at the curtains of his Hogwarts bed - and a pair of dark wash jeans that did absolutely nothing to hide -

Fuck fuck fuck, how he wanted. And it looked like Potter wanted, too. It was too much, and he had to have it.

Their eyes were locked. Potter tilted his head, a gesture, come here. Draco smirked, trying to find some sense of control, and shook his head, and crooked one finger.

You come, he thought. Give the fuck in.

And then he thought he might choke on the off-time thumping of his heart as Potter did.

Potter was none too gentle getting through the crowd. He shoved aside the bloke - entirely forgotten - in front of Draco, getting a nasty look and then a hasty retreat in response. And Draco couldn’t blame him - Potter looked, for once in his life, every inch the savior of the wizarding world. He was thick with muscle and taller than Draco remembered him, and there was something dark behind his eyes. 

Something that screamed, yes, I have killed. And I would do it again.

And then Potter stopped, stood still, and those dark eyes flashed, once, and then shied away.

Ha, Draco thought. Not as tough as you pretend. 

This is my world. 

I am in control, here.

He thought that, defiant, and ignored the voice which mocked him - a voice that sounded too much like his father - saying that he was weak, that he could never resist Harry Potter. So the fuck what, he nearly shouted back, just let me, let me -

He reached out, one hand on the back of Potter’s neck, one hand low around his hip.

Let me have him.

Potter shook, a fine trembling, and Draco lined them up, hips and chests locked, and he started to move, taking Potter with him. Dancing in a club was altogether different from the dancing they’d practiced for the Yule ball - he had a quick and horrifying flash of Snape and McGonagall grinding in a nightclub, sweet Merlin, no thank you - because nothing was like this, nothing was like this vertical sex, the panic, the need. Nothing was like fucking with your clothes on in front of a hundred other people.

Harry exhaled. It sounded - pained, and so fucking good, and Draco laughed low in his ear, and Harry dropped his head to the crook of Draco’s neck, wild hair along the side of his face. 

He wondered if they’d get to the begging.

“Fuck, Draco,” he grabbed his arse, thrusting slow and strong, “Just - please.”

So that was a yes on the begging.

“You ever done this before?”

His breath was soft on Harry’s ear, and then he bit the tender skin of his earlobe and sucked.

Harry’s voice was almost too quiet to hear over the pulsing music of the club.

“I’ve never done anything.”

A hot thrill ran through Draco, like victory, like a final confirmation of superiority, like possessiveness, and then a low, sweet bloom of something he didn’t want to call tenderness. 

Responsibility.

“Come on.”

He grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him out the front door, through a knot of smokers, and across the street, up the stairs of the courthouse. They ducked behind a stone pillar, and he pushed Harry right up against it.

He took a breath.

Harry looked - he looked almost as if he were drugged, or drunk as fuck, because he was breathing hard and his eyes were hazy and it seemed like he could pass out at any moment. Draco frowned.

“You alright, Potter? Did you drink too much?”

He shook his head and flushed.

“One drink.”

Could he really - was he acting like this just because of one dance?

Because of Draco?

“What do you want, Potter?”

He clenched his hands, his teeth, leaned his head back against the pillar.

“You know what I want.”

He laughed, bitter, “I know what parts of you want,” and he reached forward as if to run his hand along Potter’s length, stopping less than two centimetres away, “I’m not so sure about the rest of you.”

Harry opened his eyes, head still against stone, looking at him under his thick black lashes.

“Please, Draco.”

He stepped a little closer, put his hands on either side of Potter, leaning in without touching. The stone was cold and rough, but the heat coming off of Potter was scorching.

“Please what, Potter?”

“Just fucking touch me.”

He growled low in his throat, closing his eyes against - against Potter, and his heat, and everything he’d ever wanted. And then he felt strong hands on his hips, and Potter pulled him tight against that unbelievably hard cock.

“Touch me, Draco,” his voice was too tender. Draco hated it.

So he leaned forward and bit Potter’s hot neck, hard, and Potter groaned, some animalistic thing he’d never imagined but suddenly couldn’t live without, and Potter was unzipping his jeans, and he quickly unzipped Potter’s, and they were both bare in the damp-cool night, and Draco took them both in one hand - 

“Little help here, Potter.”

And Potter wrapped his firm fingers around them, clasping his hand with Draco’s - 

“Fuck, you’re thick.”

Potter dropped his head down to Draco’s shoulder -

“And you’re fucking gorgeous.”

He nearly came from Potter’s gravelly voice, and that wouldn’t do, so he bit Potter again, and spoke in low tones -

“I can’t wait to have you in me, splitting me open, fuck, I’m going to ride you until you can’t remember your name, ‘til the only thing you can remember is -”

“Oh my fucking God,” Potter froze, then shook out a desperate, “Draco.”

Watching Potter as he came was like hearing a symphony, all these little parts, little painful broken things, coalescing until he was too beautiful, too suspended in time, and the wetness on their fingers as they nearly held hands was like a benediction, and when Draco came like he’d never come before he thought, Jesus Mary and Joseph, I could love this man.

“God, that was incredible.”

He looked so well-fucked that Draco wondered just how quickly he could get hard again - and wondered what he’d look like when - if - 

And yet Potter had made no move to kiss him. 

Draco longed for that, another dam breaking.

He started, painstakingly, to rebuild his walls.

Just sex, then. 

“You get what you were looking for?”

Draco pulled away, wiping his hand on Potter’s shirt, zipping himself back up. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and tried not to notice his hand shaking as he lit one. 

“I -” fuck, he looked shattered.

He had no right. Not when it was Draco who was -

“It’s been fun, Potter.”

Turning his back was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He started to walk down the stairs, back to the club, back to find a stranger who didn’t - who didn’t make him feel -

“Did you mean it?”

Potter stepped out from behind the column. Draco turned - oh sweet Merlin, Potter was struggling to zip his jeans, and he was covered in come, and yet he looked so earnest, how did he manage?

“Mean what, Potter?”

“What you -” he blushed, “What you said. About…”

Ah. 

“You fucking me? Putting your cock up my arse?”

Potter rubbed the back of his neck, and why he thought that was hot, he did not know.

“Yeah. That.”

“You sure you want that?”

Potter was silent. He took one last drag of his cigarette, then dropped it and ground it out with his boot.

“I’ll tell you what. You think about that. What you want.”

Potter looked up, hope and fear battling on his face. Draco took a few steps closer to him.

“Go back to your - wherever you’re staying. Take your come-soaked clothes off,” Potter blushed, “Or leave them on, stay nice and wet. Get in bed. Wrap your hand around yourself.” 

Draco ran his eyes down Potter’s body, lingering on his already nearly full cock. He looked into his eyes and gave him his best smirk.

“And then think of me.”

He turned to walk away again, then shouted back over his shoulder.

“I’ll be at the university quad at 6:00 tomorrow. Bring coffee. If you’re brave enough.” 

As he crossed the street and ducked back into the club, he thought about that image - Potter, biting his lips to keep quiet, his pulsing prick in hand, wet from both of them, his head thrown back - and didn’t know if he hoped he’d show up tomorrow or prayed that he wouldn’t.

But at least he’d had this. This one night.

Maybe, if he was lucky, it hadn’t been the biggest mistake of his life. Maybe he’d get to keep the memory.

Maybe then he could move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist tracks: "Fisherman's Blues" by the Waterboys, and "Smoke Filled Room" by Mako. 
> 
> "With light in my head  
> With you in my arms." 
> 
> "Walk into a smoke filled room  
> Oh, I believe love will follow you"


	12. Chapter 12

The barista was rather cute.

Harry sat at a small table under the picture window at the front of the cafe. He had a huge mug of coffee - a latte with too much milk and too much caramel sauce, which made it perfect - and across from him he’d set up Draco’s double espresso with a small pot of cream, both under a stasis charm.

He was fifteen minutes early, which was unusual, but he was also more nervous than he had ever been. The coffee probably wouldn’t help that, but it was an effective prop - see, nothing to watch here, nothing out of the ordinary, just a bloke nearing 40 in the midst of a sexuality crisis (for the second time), quietly drinking coffee and pretending he’s not about to -

The barista looked over at him and gave him a saucy wink.

Really. He was almost twice his age.

And Harry felt - he felt nothing. As far as he could tell, the young man was absolutely his type - tall, slender, messy blonde hair, a tattoo peeking out from under his collar. One hundred percent, the kind of guy that he thought he should go for, age aside. But all of those features, the things that were nice to look at, lacked the spark, the crucial element, the piece that he’d been missing for so long. 

He’d done all the things you’re supposed to do, you know, when you’re facing down a lack of passion with your wife and considering that you might really, truly, after all that bother, be attracted to men. He knew he’d enjoyed the hell out of every fucking second with... 

He tried to put that away. Pack it down somewhere. Under the cloak - in a cupboard.

So he read some erotica, and watched some porn, and it was arousing in a general way (unfortunately rather more arousing than intimacy with Ginny) but again, there was this - this gap. And for so long he thought he could live with it. 

Until he saw the announcement in the paper. The divorce. A little picture of Malfoy looking cold and remote and severe.

And he was rock fucking hard.

He couldn’t live with it anymore.

So, yeah, 37 years old, three children, an almost ex-wife, about to be homeless - because he didn’t want to keep imposing on Gin, who was already too good to him - and he could just give himself a smack because it wasn’t men he wanted, not men he threw over Ginny for. Not the cute barista, who practically screamed power bottom; not Justin at work, who’d tried it on once and kindly laughed off Harry’s rebuff; not any of the fantastically attractive Quidditch players he’d met through Gin. No.

It wasn’t a sexuality crisis. 

It was a Malfoy crisis.

Harry glanced at his watch. Just a few minutes more. He tensed his shoulders and shook his head and then thumped it down onto the table. 

He kept it there for some time.

“You okay, lover?”

It was the barista, of course. He was leaning one hip against the wall, zipper at Harry’s eye level when he picked his head up off the table. Harry stared up at him - a cheeky grin at the corner of his thin lips, all his body language saying, “take me home, will you?”

A flash of movement behind him.

“Potter,” the voice was arctic, “Why, exactly, is this... child... calling you ‘lover’?”

Oh, fuck.

“Draco, hi, I, er,” he tried to stand up but was penned in.

“And who are you?”

Draco raised his left eyebrow and looked down - the barista was maybe three inches shorter - and said, very quietly, “I’m you in about twenty years. A little advice,” he sat, picked up the espresso with his long, nimble fingers, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew. This one -” he nodded to Harry, “- is hard to swallow.”

“I’d give it a go,” and he threw in another wink. He really was relentless.

Harry barked a laugh, then covered his mouth in embarrassment.

Draco looked up to the ceiling, then sighed.

“I’m sure you would. But trust me,” he met the barista’s eyes, “He’s not worth it.”

Silence.

The barista slinked away.

“I almost expected you to eviscerate him.”

Draco sipped at his coffee, then stirred in a little cream. Less, now, than he used to add.

“I was young, once. Prone to throwing myself at handsome strangers. And you’ve always been -”

He shut his mouth and looked a bit like he’d swallowed a toad. It was a terrible face, and it made something in Harry’s chest melt. 

Draco was so beautiful when he was accidentally unattractive. 

“Hi,” his voice was soft, hoping they could start again - at least, start today again.

“Hello, Potter.”

Draco looked down at the cup in his hands, as if only now noticing it, and frowned.

“Please tell me I’m not drinking someone else’s espresso.”

Harry laughed a little, awkward.

“No, I, er. I ordered it. For you.”

“Oh,” Draco pinked up around the edges, “Thanks.”

“So I -”

“Would you -”

They spoke at the same time, then fell silent. Harry gestured at Draco - you first.

“Yes, well… Your owl was - unexpected,” he took another sip, then set the cup down, “And irritatingly vague.”

“Yeah,” Harry rubbed the back of his neck, an old habit. He heard Draco’s breath catch, and saw him clench his jaw and look away.

“Is there - do you have some explanation as to why you wanted to, to talk, after…” 

Draco trailed off, and behind his still perfect pale skin and his shining fall of hair and his undoubtedly expensive muggle suit, he looked quietly miserable.

“I do, yeah,” he cleared his throat, about to explain, when Draco interrupted -

“It does seem that our children… get on.”

Harry smiled, and he saw a hint of laughter in Draco’s grey eyes.

“Get on, yeah - I’m pretty sure Al thinks the world revolves around Scorp.”

Draco shuddered dramatically.

“Horrid nickname, I don’t know why -”

“Well, with a name like Scorpius -”

“Oh, right, and Albus Severus is such a winner -”

“Oi, I -” Harry stopped and wrinkled his nose, “Yeah, okay, that’s on me.”

Draco almost smiled. And then his gaze frosted over.

“Ginevra didn’t get to pick names?”

Harry froze, too. He thought back - back to when they started talking about baby names. He’d cared too much - he maybe always felt that Harry was a stupid name, too plain, just, not enough of a link to all of the people who’d gone before him. So for his kids, he thought he’d give them that gift. The gift of legacy. People who would have loved them so much. 

Ginny was one child out of seven - well, six, now. She figured if there were family names to be passed on, her brothers could probably take care of it. 

She just wanted a family with Harry. And he’d wanted one with her. 

He’d got it, and he was still miserable.

“How - how is Ginevra?”

Draco’s voice was stilted, uncomfortable, and perfectly pitched to sound polite, if insincere. Harry squinted at him.

“Are you trying to be nice?”

He scoffed, then rolled his eyes.

“Yes. Merlin knows why. Do you think this afternoon will go better if I start throwing things?”

Harry breathed out a bit of a laugh, then wrapped his fingers around his mug. He stared into the milky-sweet brew, not really knowing what to say - even though he felt he had so much to say, had been holding onto it for years. 

Maybe he was worried that if he opened his mouth it would all - it would be real. He’d start talking and tell Draco everything - from how badly he wanted him, right now against the glass window, to what he’d had for breakfast that morning; from the way he’d looked at Ginny and wished she were pale and blonde and mean to what he’d been imagining when he wanked in the shower last night, clenching his mouth shut so he wouldn’t make a sound. Everything.

How he’d dreamt of lazy mornings, drinking the dregs of canned cider, burying his face in the soft hair along Draco’s neck, kissing him between cigarettes. Planning a life, a little bit. 

How he’d woken up, every morning for almost 17 years, expecting to see Draco. Putting a record on. Mixing up instant coffee. Dancing naked in front of the mirror. 

Loving him in that way he told himself is only possible when you’re young. When your heart is still fresh enough to break.

“Gin and I are getting a divorce.”

The reaction was fast and unmistakable. Draco’s face went white, and his hands clutched his cup. He didn’t move.

And his voice was cool and so fucking calm when he said, “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

Draco cleared his throat a bit.

“I’m not sorry,” a bit of a sneer.

“Me neither. I mean, I wasn’t when I saw that you and Astoria -”

“Why are you getting a divorce?” he shot back, fast. A little too loud. And he made the toad face again.

“Why did you?” Harry’s voice was suddenly just as hard, like ice. He had to know if there was any -

Draco leaned back, body relaxed now, but truly snakelike, with a promise of violence. He smiled a creamy smile. 

“Astoria was a wonderful wife. She has been a good mother to Scorpius. She’s beautiful, entertaining, and my mother cares for her.”

Harry felt a hot flash of - yeah, it was jealousy. And anger, that someone else, some woman, had touched him.

“So?” It was almost a growl.

Get a grip, Harry. 

“If Astoria has one flaw, at least from my perspective, it is that she is a woman.”

Harry blinked. Draco’s mouth tilted up.

“So still super gay, then?”

Draco finally laughed, a real one, though understated.

“As you have cause to know.”

He looked up through the blonde fringe of his eyelashes, then tossed back his platinum hair. Harry flushed.

“Well, er. Yeah. So -”

“Might I assume that a similar issue is the cause for your impending divorce?”

He said it in such a disinterested tone, as if it could not have mattered less. But Harry knew him - knew the tells, the tiny movements, and Draco had always lied in the same way - with a twitch at the corner of his right eye.

He cares, Harry realized, and he started - just a little - to hope.

“More or less.”

“Mm.” 

“Actually, I…” he trailed off. 

There was a bit of space between them, here at this table in this muggle cafe, and Harry didn’t know what to do with his words, because that bit of space was 17 years worth of regrets. Good things, too, like kids, and hard work, and family, but… 

Harry started to move his hand forward. Just a little, just to see if -

“Have you found a place to live, Potter?”

He jumped back at Draco’s clinical tone.

“Er, what?”

“I assume you’re letting Ginevra keep the house. You’ll need a new one.”

Draco was suddenly all business, as if this were a lunch with clients, and not drinking cold coffee with the walking human disaster he used to fuck in dark alleys.

“Yeah, no, I don’t have anything lined up yet.”

“Mm,” Draco pulled out a pocket watch - which gave Harry an opportunity to run his eyes over the sharply tailored suit one more time, Merlin fuck he just wanted to rip it off and lick every inch - and frowned, “I’ve a meeting, need to run. But I’ve got a good friend who’s the best estate agent in London. Discreet. Owl me if you want her to set something up.”

Draco stood, all elegance and remove. It was happening too fast.

Harry felt like he nearly shouted, “I’ll owl you?”

He paused, buttoning his Burberry coat.

“Yes. You will owl me.”

He looked down at Harry, and for just a moment the facade cracked, and Harry could see the long shadows of his worst mistake.

Draco’s voice was low, dangerous, and deadly serious.

“I will never chase after you. I will never seek you out. If you want my time, you will work for it.”

Harry’s mouth was dry.

“Yeah, I,” he swallowed, “Of course.”

He watched Draco’s back, the slender lines of the coat, the perfectly hemmed trousers, the impeccable posture, the long fall of shining hair. 

That didn’t go at all as he’d expected. 

Harry was always watching Draco walk away.

He didn’t want to have to do that any more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Like a River Runs" by Bleachers and Sia. 
> 
> "I woke up thinking you were still here  
> My hands shaking with regret  
> I've held this dream for such a long long time  
> And I wanna get up  
> To the rhythm of a wild, to the rhythm of a wild heart  
> That beats, that beats like a rolling drum"


	13. Chapter 13

When his alarm went off, Harry burrowed his head further into the down pillows and groaned. Why was he waking up this early? 

He rolled over and stretched, lazy, down to his toes. Tired or not, he felt unusually fantastic. His whole body was relaxed like a spiral of honey off the comb, the bed so soft, his muscles slack. Eyes still closed, he remembered last night - the club, the courthouse, the grit of the stone behind him, and Draco’s hand. Draco’s mouth as it bit him and as his whole body released, as if he had been waiting his whole life for that sharp pain. 

Shame came in the wake of remembered pleasure. 

He thought about home, Ron and ‘Mione and, oh God, Ginny - what would they think, if they knew that the most pleasurable moment of his 19 years was clutching at Draco in the dark, giving in? He tried to imagine kissing Ginny, winding his fingers through her flame-bright hair - he felt an echo of love, like a sepia-toned photograph. Something precious but aged, like a snapshot in a family scrapbook.

But Draco - 

Draco was that moment in the Wizard of Oz, you know, when she steps out into a new world of too-saturated pigments, the miasma of flowers and red glitter and golden bricks. When Harry had watched that film through the crack in his cupboard door, he’d almost been sick from the transition - black and white was so much closer to his life, the way it had always been, and little Harry had wondered in that moment if he would ever truly see in color.

And now he had. 

And it was 5:00 in the morning, and he’d only gotten four hours of sleep, and he was full of shame, and even so he was going to get two cups of coffee and meet Draco in the silvery light of sunrise. 

And it was good. Deliciously good. 

He pulled on a pair of jeans, a fresh shirt, a hooded jacket, and stopped by the cafe he’d seen on his first morning here. He wandered up the hill to the University College Cork campus, smelling the river, watching blackbirds take flight.

He’d had so few moments to notice beauty. Everything was still, crystallized in the hour before waking. The grass of the quad was perfectly manicured, soft and trimmed and so green. 

Draco, waiting for him - God, he could get used to that - was washed out, almost white in the faint strains of sunlight, and yet another beautiful thing he thought he’d never get to see. Get to have.

“Potter,” Draco held out his hand for a paper cup. 

“Malfoy,” he imitated the regal - if exhausted - tone.

Draco rolled his eyes, took a sip, looked away.

“It was - perfectly acceptable when you used my given name,” he waved his hand, “Feel free to do so.”

Harry felt a smile pull at his face.

“Oh, right. Draco.”

His voice was softer than he intended, with an undercurrent of - something. Something too nice for the bloke you’d pulled off the night before. Draco blushed, just a pale tint of color.

“You should call me Harry,” he sat on the bench, the hood of his jacket warm around the dark bruise on his neck that he hadn’t, for some reason, wanted to heal.

Draco pulled out his pack of cigarettes, offering one to Harry, flipping open his lighter. He debated - “What the hell?” - and had Draco light both. They were quiet for a moment - Draco as he took a long, practiced drag, and Harry as he puffed lightly and tried not to choke.

He was not successful.

Draco gave him a little pat on the back, just shy of too rough.

“Fuck, Harry,” his voice broke a bit on the name, “Not a smoker, then?”

“Not really,” but even as he said it, he felt the first hit of nicotine to his system. Another thing he could get used to, and fast.

“Making up for my uneventful teen years, I guess.”

Draco raised his eyebrows straight to his hairline.

“Uneventful? You?”

Harry took another drag.

“Well. Rebellion-free.”

“I think I remember that you stood up to the Dark Lord.”

“Eh,” he breathed out, smoke curling through the air, “Yeah. But that wasn’t rebellion. Just the thing you do.”

“Just the thing you do,” Draco’s mouth dropped open, “Sure.”

Harry shot him a grin - Draco crinkled up his lips and sipped at his coffee.

“I suppose I’m making up for lost time, myself,” a wry smile, “As you might have noticed.”

Harry leaned back against the bench, some of that morning lassitude still flowing through him. He relaxed into it, letting his legs fall open, and the side of his thigh lined up perfectly with the side of Draco’s.

“Hmm,” Draco turned his eyes away, but left his leg where it was, “This coffee is shit, Potter.”

Harry barked a laugh. 

“Feel free to get it yourself,” he frowned, looking down into his cup, “What’s wrong with it?”

“Sugar does not belong in coffee,” despite the complaints, he drained his drink, “I take two shots of espresso, Potter -” he grimaced and corrected himself as Harry nudged his leg, “Harry. With cream. Get it right tomorrow.”

Draco took on that pink tinge again.

He was offering - Harry didn’t really know. He didn’t know what to hope for. Except - he’d never felt like this, like everything inside of him was balanced on the edge of a cliff, like he was in that farmhouse, careening in a tornado towards unknown ground. He’d faced too many horrors, but they’d always been something that other people chose, other people forced on him. And he’d done what he was supposed to do, what he was raised for, and he was glad of it, but this -

This was entirely his choice. 

Black and white - morality, duty, good and evil, a chess game with clear rules, things he should and shouldn’t do.

Or full fucking color. 

He jumped - he fell. 

He brought Draco coffee every morning for a week and a day. 

And on that Friday night, when he danced with this man - so stunning, so damaged, just as hungry and broken as he was - Draco leaned over and said -

“Save yourself a walk tomorrow.”

He pulled him close and bit his neck and held him as he nearly fell apart.

“Come home with me.”

It was an easy decision, and he finally got to see, got to feel -

Draco in the glow of streetlights as they stumbled up the hill - Draco, as he pushed him against a stone wall and thrust their hips together - Draco, and the way he took off his clothes, practiced and perfect and unaccountably nervous - 

The chirping of birds and the way he rolled his eyes and muttered, “Fucking Cathal.”

The sound of the record player, skipping, and an old LP, David Bowie’s “Low.”

A spliff and its thick smoke, the way the night blurred around the edges, the way it was impossibly sharp when he wrapped his lips around Draco for the first time, and how Draco fucked his face and he choked and it was exactly right, exactly what he -

And lubing up his fingers, pushing them in to impossibly tight heat, watching Draco throw his head back onto his lumpy pillows, finding that spot that made him shiver and cry out and clutch at his hand and demand in that Malfoy tone, “Get in me, Merlin fuck, Harry, just -”

Pouring himself into that heat, every inch of him, and how was it possible with that slender body with the silvery scars and the blackened tattoo and God, no one told him it could feel like this -

Draco holding his face, whispering, “You’re so fucking beautiful,” and Harry knowing, for once, that it was true -

Draco as he clenched, sucking him in further, giving a broken cry, his whole body jerking as he came between them, and holy fuck, it was so hot, Draco’s come wet on their stomachs, and the tender fucked and fucked up gaze, and Harry coming with such excruciating pleasure that it was exquisitely painful.

Like his whole heart shot forth from his fucking cock. Like he’d stay there, in him, forever, if asked. 

“You’re still getting the coffee,” Draco mumbled as he drifted off towards sleep.

Harry held him and kissed his shoulder and yawned.

“‘Course.”

The sun rose. The first sunrise they shared.

Not the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "All I've Ever Known," from Hadestown, and "Always Crashing in the Same Car" by David Bowie. "I was alone so long/I didn't even know that I was lonely." "Every chance, every chance that I take"


	14. Chapter 14

Of all the stupid - 

Harry had, in fact, owled him. Asking for Pans’s name. And now he was stuck, because he was too fucking weak to shut Harry down and bury him for good. 

He was a fool.

But he wrote to Pansy, asking if she had any good properties with a lot of room - because, presumably, he’d want bedrooms for the children - and she’d written back right away, because of course she did. 

Which led him to today, standing here in front of one of the more modern wizarding developments, waiting, as always, for Harry.

Pansy was inside, “setting the mood,” as she called it - usually lighting some candles and baking biscuits so the cinnamon sugar smell filled the space, and casting cleaning charms on every surface. 

If she knew who was coming, she probably wouldn’t have bothered.

Or she would have poisoned the biscuits. Which didn’t sound like the worst course of action, at the moment.

Harry was late.

He paced in front of the gate - warded with elaborate and efficient spells, polished to a black gleam. The building rose high above him, so unlike traditional wizarding architecture; it appealed to him even as it was foreign and new. Clean lines, steel and glass and concrete, mixed with powerful magic. He’d no idea if Harry would like it, and a little mean part of him felt pretty damned good about possibly wasting his time.

And another part of him, which he was resolutely ignoring, wondered if he wasn’t just excited to spend any time with Harry at all. 

He grit his teeth. Fuck that.

He heard footsteps behind him, and a strong breeze carried a familiar scent - bergamot, oakmoss, labdanum. Fresh and earthy and distinctly Potter, like wind over a Quidditch pitch, sweet vermouth, and the rot-rich floor of the Forbidden Forest. 

He took a moment, just three second with his eyes closed, to revel in the scent, and remember.

“Hey,” Harry’s voice, soft and tentative, “This the place?”

He gestured up at the impressive building.

“Mm. The agent’s inside.”

“It’s not the whole building, surely,” he looked intimidated.

“No, Potter. I doubt even you have the galleons,” he jerked his head up, “It’s upstairs.”

“Oh, right.” 

Harry opened the gate, gave a little bow, smiled crookedly. It should not have been cute.

“After you.”

Draco pushed his thumb against a tablet by the front door - a bit of magical security inspired by a muggle invention. It read magical signatures instead of fingerprints; Pansy had given him temporary access for the day.

“Wicked.”

“Impressed?”

“Definitely.”

The door slid open, and they walked through a lobby with marble floors, a large floral arrangement sitting on a cherrywood table, an elaborate but modern chandelier, two lifts.

“Isn’t this a bit -”

He looked over at Harry, who seemed uncomfortable, biting his lip.

“I know it’s rather more than you’re used to, Potter. But it’s one of the safest buildings in London. More security than the Ministry.”

They stepped into the lift, and Draco scanned his thumb again, a light popping on for the top floor.

“It’s just - it’s so nice.”

“And you don’t deserve nice, hmm?”

The lift didn’t seem to move at all, totally smooth and soundless. Draco leaned against one wall, while Harry propped himself against the wall opposite. 

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I didn’t think that you would think so.” 

“Well,” he looked down, “What I think -” he paused, just a moment too long.

The doors opened.

“Holy shit.”

Draco didn’t look into the flat, at first, but watched the shock and wonder cross Harry’s face. He had forgotten - in all the publicity, in Harry’s popularity, in his heroics and all of that fabulous nonsense, it was easy to ignore the facts of Harry’s childhood. The ways he was already screwed up, long before -

He remembered the night that they’d both tried to fit in his tiny shower cubicle. How it was fun, and silly, and kind of sexy, until it wasn’t anymore - Harry breathing too hard, showing the whites of his eyes like a spooked horse, freezing cold and sweating buckets. Wrapping him up in blankets, holding him, as he spoke in a toneless voice.

The cupboard. The mouldy ends of loaves of bread that his muggle family tossed in the bin, and that he fished out when they were all asleep. The way they didn’t hit him - not really, Harry said, just once in a while when he was really out line - so it couldn’t have been that bad, and why was he upset, now, when he’d never have to go back, when so many other people had it so much worse? He hadn’t starved, Harry insisted, he’d just - been hungry. And the cupboard was - the family blood, his mother’s blood, it did protect him, even if - And Dudley wasn’t a bad bloke, really, he’d even called him up when the war was over, and wasn’t it funny that he’d felt a little sick just hearing his voice?

Harry had laughed, Draco remembered that so clearly. Like it was all so funny. Neglect and abuse and the little ways that he coped with them, laughing, rubbing at his nose, shivering in his arms, and then he kissed Draco with such fierce intensity that Draco hadn’t been able to blurt out, my father locked me in our cellar, sometimes, and his cane was hard with sharp fangs, and - 

And Draco was so angry. He took Harry into him, both of them still wet, and it was rough and so, so good. 

“Jesus, Draco, look at this place.”

He shook his head, eyes clearing, finally wrenching his gaze away and towards the flat. 

Holy shit was right. It was unbelievable. 

Dark - nearly black - hardwood floors stretched out in a large room that was floor to ceiling windows, looking out over the London skyline. The space was completely open, with a large kitchen in a minimalist style taking up the left side. An island, ice-white marble with sleek black cabinets, had room for four barstools. 

It should have been cold, but it was fully furnished with thick rugs and plush couches, a real fireplace, open bookshelves with recessed lighting, everything seeming soft and cozy and perfect for long afternoons with endless hot cups of coffee. 

It was romantic. He tried not to imagine himself spread out on the soft velvet of the couch, firelight warming his naked skin, and failed.

Across from the lift, on the other side of the open room, was a wrought iron spiral staircase. Harry walked over to run his hand along the cool marble of the island, and Draco heard a very distinctive sound - 

The stiletto-sharp clack of Pansy’s high heels. He saw her coming down the staircase, regal as ever, and he saw the look on her face when she realized who the mysterious client Draco begged her to take really was.

“You must be joking.”

Harry’s head lifted - it was like he was mesmerized, Merlin, this place was perfect - and he spotted Pansy.

“Er, Parkinson?”

“Zabini, now, Potter,” she gestured in what was supposed to be a casual way, clearly showing off the massive diamond on her ring finger.

“Congratulations. Er, I guess.”

She rolled her eyes in that very distinctive Pansy moue of distaste and then continued in her descent down the staircase.

The timer on the oven dinged. Harry jumped. 

“Get those, would you?” she said, over her shoulder, as she came to embrace Draco.

Harry, bless him, actually took the biscuits out of the oven. Pansy hugged Draco very tightly indeed, and whispered a simple but eloquent, “What the fuck?”

“Just do it for me, please, Pans.”

She backed up and held him by the shoulders, looking torn between hugging him again or shaking the hell out of him. Both of which he needed, it felt like. She straightened up, cleared her throat, and pasted on the smile that had made her one of the most successful estate agents in England. 

“So, Potter. What do you think?”

He looked very uncertain as to his welcome - which he should have - and placed the biscuit tray on the range. 

“Er, well, it’s… very nice.”

“Very nice,” she crossed her arms, manicured nails tapping against her elbows.

“It’s great!” 

“That’s what I thought.”

He made a show of looking around the room.

“Are there, er, bedrooms?”

Pansy turned to look at him with a face that said, “Is this fucker for real?” Draco shrugged and fought the urge to laugh. 

He could admit to himself that even now, making Harry uncomfortable was too fun to resist. 

“Come with me,” her voice brusque, heels clicking back towards the staircase. 

There were, of course, bedrooms, and four of them as Draco had requested. Three rooms for the children which shared a hall bath, and -

“Oh, wow.”

And a master suite, also fully furnished, with a huge four poster bed and rich green linens. 

Harry squinted at Pans.

“Green, huh?” 

“I thought it was actually for Draco,” she mumbled, “Finally getting him out of that drafty old -”

“Let’s look at the bathroom,” he interrupted, elbowing her none too gently on his way across the room. Merlin, she could be a bitch.

But as he took in the huge walk-in wardrobe, he remembered why she was such a good friend.

“I don’t have this many clothes,” Potter looked around, shocked again.

“I never would have guessed.”

He felt a laugh bubbling up, watching Harry look around like a first year at Hogwarts and Pansy glaring at him like she was five seconds from throttling him and hiding the evidence. 

And he didn’t really - he didn’t want to look at why, but having them both in the same room was -

He was happy. Just, quietly, a little warmth in his chest. It was a new experience, them together, but watching Harry and feeling this way wasn’t new at all. 

Oh Morgana, he was screwed. 

Through the closet and into the bathroom, they admired the deep soaking tub, the frankly obscenely massive shower, the double sink, the black and white tile, the gold fixtures. It was absolutely perfect.

Harry still looked… uncomfortable.

He leaned over to Draco, his back to Pansy.

“I don’t need all this.”

Draco didn’t look at him, just kept his eyes staring at the bottom of the tub, and his voice was quiet but firm.

“Harry,” Harry’s breath stuttered, “You don’t have to live in a cupboard for the rest of your life.”

He felt Harry’s shoulders shake, once, like the beginning of a sob.

“Or a closet, for that matter.”

His voice was sly and mocking, which seemed to do the trick as Harry choked out a surprised laugh. 

“Potter,” Pansy barked out, “Let’s talk price. Leave Draco up here to drool over the wardrobe.”

“Nice, Pans.”

“Like you didn’t want to.”

Harry trailed after Pansy like a lost puppy, and Draco heard that intimidating clacking as they went down the stairs. He ran his fingers along the double sink - she really had picked the perfect place for him, and he hoped Harry would take it - and stared into the mirror.

Too many years ago, now, he and Harry had crowded around his tiny sink, brushing their teeth, worn out but keyed up as 19 year old kids usually are. They’d been out all night, and Draco was about five minutes away from being late to work, and he nudged Harry with little energy and said, “Why the fuck are you still up, you’ve got nowhere to be, go the fuck back to sleep.”

Harry’d grinned at him, mouth full of toothpaste, and spat - lovely - before he said, “I just like brushing my teeth with you.”

His heart pounded too hard.

“You are really weird, Potter.”

Harry wrapped his arms around him from behind and kissed his neck, sleepy.

“Maybe so. I don’t think you mind,” he slapped his arse, “Now get to work.” 

He looked at himself in the mirror, large and sparkling. Catalogued every fine line, the hairs turning silver, signs of maturity hard won since that summer in Cork. 

He’d been lonely for so much of his life.

Making his way towards the staircase, he heard Pansy’s voice - the dangerous voice. He froze.

“What do you think you’re doing, Potter?

“Well, I’m trying to buy a flat…”

She laughed, derisive.

“And you will, I’m getting you a good deal, by the way. But you know exactly what I mean.”

Draco held his breath.

Harry’s voice was quiet.

“I do.”

He wished he could see Harry’s face.

“Do you know what it was like, back then?”

“What -”

She kept talking, fast.

“He came back strong, you know. He took control of the manor, the family fortune, and he helped us - all of the Slytherins, who I’m sure you wouldn’t spit on if we were on fire…”

“Oi, that’s not -”

“Shut up. He’s fucking tough, you know? But if you think you didn’t,” her voice broke, “Didn’t hurt him, you’re an idiot.”

Silence. He was trembling - from anger, from shame, from gratitude to his best friend for caring so much.

“I have no intention of hurting him again. Ever again.”

He heard Pansy take a deep breath.

“From the look on your face, I almost believe you. But know,” the heel-clack noise, firmer this time, “If you do, I will come back here. And I will have no problem, whatsoever, ripping off your fucking testicles. Got it?”

“Yes,” he actually sounded scared, which was smart of him, then resolute, “I won’t hurt him, Pansy. I -”

“Don’t say it, not until you… You know what, fine. Now,” he could hear the predatory smile, God he loved her, “Let’s talk.”

Harry bought the flat - and all the furniture in it, even, it turned out, the green linens - because how could he not? 

And if Draco went back to the manor, alone, and imagined all of his clothes lined up next to Harry’s - their books on the same open shelves - their toothbrushes aligned, his on the right, Harry’s on the left -

Nobody needed to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "These Days" by Nico. 
> 
> "I had a lover  
> I don't think I'll risk another  
> These days, these days  
> And if I seem to be afraid  
> To live the life that I have made in song  
> It's just that I've been losing so long"


	15. Chapter 15

The first time they kissed was on a bench, next to the river, right at the edge of the university campus, and he hadn’t meant to do it, swore to himself that he never would, but he did it anyway.

It was Lughnasa.

Part of a pure-blood education was learning about and developing respect for their cultural holy days. His mother had always taken him out at winter solstice to light a candle against the dark; his father helped him pour mead for the Aos Si on Samhain. It was what it meant to be a wizard - tradition, the old ways, the power of the land - and it was what he was told he was fighting for when he took the mark.

He should have known better.

And he should have known better than to kiss Harry after almost a month of fucking and drinking and laughing and - kissing made it real. And on Lughnasa, when marriages were once made, a year and a day to see if it would work, if love could grow, if passion might stay. 

It was by its very nature a magical time, one of those in-between times, the wheel of the year turning, the first harvest, the invitation. And he’d been sitting there, smoking as usual, with Harry there next to him, and the river running, and he’d been thinking about the lessons he’d been taught, and Harry put his arm around him, a bit. 

“What are you thinking about?”

He leaned back into Harry’s muscled arm, flicked his cigarette into the water. He put his hand on Harry’s thigh.

“I’m thinking about fucking you right here on this bench.”

Harry laughed, and he blushed, shaking his head.

“No, you’re not.”

He ran his hand along the firm curve of Harry’s leg.

“What do you know?”

“You have a tell. You know, when you’re lying.”

He pretended offence, scoffing, “I never.”

Harry leaned in, mouth close to his ear, whispering, “I know every fucking thing about you, Malfoy.”

His heart seemed to stop, and he growled, “You think so?”

Harry moved closer, “Scared, Draco?” And he sucked at that spot on his neck, right over his pulse point. 

He was.

“Fuck you, Potter.”

He swung himself up and over, straddling Harry, thighs holding him tight; Harry’s hands slid up his legs, cupping his arse and pulling him closer, letting one hand wander to the centre of his back. 

He was breathing hard and his vision was red around the edges, afternoon light flaring in the corners of his eyes, and Harry’s cock was thick under him, and he was smiling and smiling, and he hated him, he hated him so much, and he grabbed his horrible hair in two fists and touched their lips together, finally, and devoured him.

And Harry made this little sound.

There’s this feeling that he would get in his chest, sometimes, that he thought he must have been born with - some sort of inherent flaw, a curse, like a faltering heart. It was the feeling of Father putting down one of the hunting crups, a pup, for being born too small - the feeling when he’d had a nightmare and wet the bed and his mother told him he was too old to be comforted, and shamed him. A wrenching, like when Dobby didn’t come home, like when Pansy’d kissed him in fourth year, and he’d felt nothing, and that nothing ached with the life he thought he should have and now knew he never would.

That was the sound Harry made. The heartbreak sound - the voice of everything, shattered. And the sound echoed in his chest, two pains perfectly in tune, this moment on the bench, on Lughnasa, the first harvest before the end of summer. 

It was golden like Tokay, and bitter like anise, and he kept kissing Harry, pulling out these little ugly sounds - and it was so fucking incredible, and he wondered, deleriously, why he hadn’t been doing this his whole damned life. 

Harry, under him, thrust up, and he ground down, and they moved together there in the daylight. One of Harry’s hands came around and rubbed up against his prick; he pushed into it, chasing that moment, biting and sucking and worshipping that mouth.

“Jesus fuck,” Harry pulled away for a breath, panting.

“Shut up, Harry.”

But he couldn’t, he was noisy, he’d break from the kiss to beg him to touch him, for fucks sake, and Draco whispered in his ear,

“No, you fucker, you’re going to come like this, right here, where anybody could see, and I’m not going to do anything but ride you and kiss your stupid mouth and tell you what a filthy bastard you are, how much you want it, how much you’re gagging for it -”

Harry latched onto his collarbone and groaned and shook, and Draco followed him over, pushing into that rough hand twice more before he came. 

Harry started to laugh.

“I guess you did fuck me on the bench.”

He leaned his head back, and Draco looked down at him, both of them wet and messy, and he kissed him then, one more time, and it was sweet.

And then - it was like they’d been waiting to do this all along, maybe even since they were children, because wherever they went - the club, or Art’s, out for a quick dinner, any available alley, or on one memorable and mortifying occasion, the butcher counter at the local market - Harry would grab him, touch-starved, and kiss him until he could barely breathe. He didn’t know if, now that he had Harry’s lips and tongue and little hurtful noises, he could survive without them. 

Now, in the dazzling sunshine, he just breathed in Harry’s smell and Harry’s smile and Harry’s taste, and it was as fresh and ripe as golden apples from the tree.

A year and a day later, Draco packed his case, turned off the lights in his apartment, left the keys with Cathal.

It had been 11 months since he’d last kissed Harry.

He wouldn’t do it again for almost 17 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "The Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. 
> 
> "The last time i saw you we had just split in two  
> He was looking at me, i was looking at you  
> You had a way so familiar i could not recognize  
> Cause you had blood on your face  
> And i had blood in my eyes  
> But i swear by your expression  
> That the pain down in your soul was the same  
> As the one down in mine"


	16. Chapter 16

“Harry…”

He rolled over on the lumpy couch. He had decided to wait, just a few more weeks, before moving into the new flat. It was maybe 7:00 in the morning, and he’d felt the fatigue of too many heavy days, so he’d tucked himself in as soon as Lily’s light had gone off last night. 

Gin was on assignment, somewhere - writing an article on the new experimental training routine of some team in Wales, maybe. He’d been a house Dad for the weekend - fine by him, more time to spend with Lil before…

Fuck. He punched the cushion under him, not really awake yet but still worrying.

They hadn’t told their children.

It was stupid and wrong and truly poor planning. But to them, from the inside, it just felt like -

They hadn’t been close for a long time. They lived their lives in parallel, each going to work, caring for the kids, doing their assigned tasks, and it was almost as if nothing had really changed. They had love for each other, lots of love, just - they were already separate.

But it was going to change, of course it was, because he wouldn’t always be here to read “Babbity Rabbity” to Lil, and Gin wouldn’t be at the new flat to make sure Al and Jamie brushed their hair. 

And he wouldn’t have anyone to kiss in the mornings, or laugh at the Quibbler with before bed, or hug a little and pretend - 

“Harry, come on…”

He twitched under the duvet, his mind half in sleep and half in all the things he’d been turning over like a stone, rubbing and rubbing ‘til all the rough edges were worn smooth. Al and Jamie at school, so no plan yet on how to divide the time; Lily happiest staying with her mum, for now; and all the hours he’d be on his own, truly alone in a way he’d never been. 

He stretched out and breathed in and let himself drift -

Long, silken hair, silvery against green sheets. The face he always made, right before he opened his eyes, like he could murder Harry for waking him up. The stretch of pale skin, and the obscene sounds he made as he smelled that first cup of coffee. Starting in on the crossword and tossing it aside and reaching down, down, under the covers, and wrapping his hand around -

“Harry James Potter, if you don’t get your arse up in five seconds…”

The fireplace was shouting at him.

He rolled off the couch in shock and hit the floor with his face. And, er, other things.

Exactly how he liked to wake up. Christ.

And yes, that was Ginny snickering in the fire.

“Oh, Harry,” she tried to cover her eyes, but kept gawking at him. She was laughing pretty hard now.

“I’m up, I’m up,” he mumbled into the floor, not actually getting up. 

“Do you need me to come through?”

“No,” he sighed, pulled himself into a sitting position, “What’s going on?”

She giggled a bit more, but then her face turned serious, and she looked down.

“Harry, I have to tell you -”

He yawned, “What, Gin?”

“Look,” she stared up at him, suddenly fierce and a bit defensive, “I know I said I’d be in Scotland -” oh yeah, that was it, “With the National team, and, well, I was, but I had an extra night, and, er, I actually slept over with Neville, and...”

His sleepy brain paused, processed, caught up. And he laughed.

“Are you trying to confess or something?”

“What? Harry…” he could practically hear her hair as she flipped it back, “No, though you could be a little… something.”

“I’m pleased,” he gave her a soft smile, “Really.”

“Well, then. Not like I did it for you, but,” she gave him a dirty look, and then a fond one, “Anyway. That’s not why I firecalled.”

“No?”

He scratched at the back of his head, wondering where this conversation was going and how soon he’d be able to put the kettle on.

“Al spotted me,” she crossed her arms, then in a mumble, “Kissing Nev.”

“What? You - what? How -” and then oh, right, “You’re at Hogwarts.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.”

“I think it’s time to tell the kids.”

“Right,” he stood up, “Right.”

He sat back down on the couch. Thought about what Lily might say, asking too many questions, wondering if they still loved her. He stood up again in a panic. Thought about Al looking disappointed in him (which was not altogether unusual, God, he was so much smarter than his old Dad). Fell back onto the couch with a thump.

“Harry, are you, right this moment, going off your nut?”

Ginny was still in the fireplace, cripes, sounding rather too amused.

“No,” he mumbled, rubbing his face, “But aren’t you - aren’t you even a little bit worried?”

Her jaw dropped.

“Worried? Harry, I’ve been going spare. Not,” he must have made a horrible grimace, “Because of us, but yeah, because of the kids. But… you should have seen Al, last night. He was -”

“Inscrutable?”

She laughed.

“No, actually. Not this time. He was open and just - he was just calm.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders.

“Bring Lily for lunch, alright? And we’ll - we’ll just do it.”

“Okay,” he put his head in his hands, then looked up at her, “I love you, you know.”

“And I love you, you queer lunatic,” she sniffled, then shot out, “Now bugger off, I want to get one more shag in.”

He heard a familiar, deep voice behind her, shout, “Gin!” with an uncharacteristic squeak, and then Ginny laughing, full throated, as she shut down the floo connection. He shook his head and let himself fall back onto the couch one more time.

He didn’t deserve her.

…..

Lily had needed no convincing to visit her brothers at Hogwarts. 

She was still annoyed that it wasn’t her turn yet, after all, and any chance to sneak into the castle was much appreciated. As he watched her - taking in all the details, memorizing the portraits and the suits of armor and the smell of potions wafting from the dungeons - he felt the shadow of his first moments, here. Hogwarts was his first real home. 

It did feel different now. Now that he knew which stones he’d had to lift, which windows he’d had to repair. He knew the building in such an intimate way, right down to its foundations, and he could still sense where all of that blood had gone, deep into rock, like a sacrifice to the innocence they hoped they’d get back.

Oof, Harry, steady on.

Nev had set up a private room - not, he was relieved to find, his personal chambers - with a light lunch and a view out over the lake. Ginny was already there, of course, and he gave her shoulder a little squeeze as they sat on squashy chairs by the fire. 

“Alright?”

She nodded, and held out her arms for an exuberant hug from Lily.

“Mum, can you believe we’re at Hogwarts?”

“Are we?” Gin looked around, pretending shock.

“Mum…”

They laughed, so alike in the way they sounded, the way they looked. Red hair and freckles and too much fun like the bubbles in champagne. 

The door opened. Jamie wandered in, eyes on his - oh Merlin, who decided that the wizarding world needed its own versions of iPods, and why had he let George buy them for all the kids? He was banging his head, some third year amalgamation of Sirius and Charlie. He threw himself - upside-down, of course - on a chair, and kept rocking out.

“Teenagers are lovely, aren’t they?” Ginny’s voice was as dry as the antarctic. Harry laughed through his nose. 

He heard whispering in the hall. He tilted his head at Gin, who shrugged, and he walked over towards the door.

And there was Al, also listening to music - one earbud in and the other trailing off… 

And attached to Scorpius Malfoy. Okay then.

They looked so little. So very serious. 

Had he ever been that unbearably cute?

He cleared his throat - Scorpius blinked up at him, and Al just glanced over as if he’d known Harry was there all along.

“Hullo, Scorpius.”

“Hullo, Mr. Potter,” he held out his hand, earbud still in, “How do you do?”

He tried not to laugh. Took the tiny hand. Shook firmly. 

“Very well, thanks,” he cleared his throat, awkward, because somehow he still felt outclassed by midget Malfoys, “What’re you listening to?”

Al spoke up.

“David Bowie, of course.”

Harry didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry, and did some weird combination of both, which earned him a very strange look from Scorpius. Not dissimilar from the toad look - but more like it had been Harry eating the toad, and Scorp was just too polite to mention it.

Okay, time to move on.

“Al, we’ve got lunch going in here -”

“Yeah, Dad,” he and his blonde shadow finally detached, “See you later.”

Harry nodded his goodbye, watching Scorpius walk away with a bag full of books and a head full of music and he thought about another boy, and what his life should have been, and wouldn’t it have been better, you know, if he’d shaken his stupid hand.

He turned away, and then just kind of... stopped. 

The day was too much. 

“Scorp’s dad is divorced, you know,” Al said it almost to the empty corridor, not looking at his dad who was maybe quietly falling apart, “He says that it’s better for everyone, because now everyone can try to be happy. All the way happy, you know?”

He wrapped his small hand around Harry’s larger, holding it the way he’d done as a little boy.

“Come on, Dad,” he pulled him around, so gentle, “Time for lunch.”

Lunch was extraordinarily uneventful.

Lily, upon hearing the news, got stuck on one crucial detail - “So what you’re saying is that I’m going to have two bedrooms, right?” - and kept quietly whispering to herself, “Two rooms. Two whole rooms…”

Jamie, forced to turn his music off - some Belgian rapper, it turned out, and a big thanks to Gabbi Goyle for that - and properly listen, gave an epic shrug which seemed to indicate, “Nothing to do with me,” and, “Is there a reason you’re interrupting my day with this?”

And Al - he kind of glowed. 

After, when the boys took Lil down to skip stones on the lake, he and Gin sat there, shell shocked.

“I guess -” she looked sad, just a little, and then relieved, like everything finally clicked into place, “I guess we haven’t really been married for a long time.”

“I am sorry.”

He could hardly bear to look at her.

“You know what? I’m not.”

“No?”

“I have three beautiful, brilliant, maddening children with my best friend in the whole world,” she wiped one eye, mostly dry, and smiled, “And sweet Circe’s tits, Nev is a rockstar in the sack.”

“Oh my God.”

She laughed.

“Come on, Harry. You can’t tell me that you’re not looking forward to climbing a certain blonde bastard like a tree as soon as possible.”

Well, she was right about that.

“This is a weird conversation to have with the woman who bore your children.”

“Harry,” she leaned forward in her chair, grabbed his hands, “Witches and wizards live a long time. We have the years to fix our mistakes.”

She ran a hand through his hair, gentle, and then ruffled it up.

“Don’t be a sad-arse. You’ll never pull that way. But I think,” she took a deep breath, “I think you should see if you can move sooner, rather than later.”

He felt this moment - another ending. Maybe the real end, finally.

Back home, he sent off an owl to Parkinson - Zabini - and he packed a case. Lily insisted on supervising, which resulted in her rejecting almost every article of clothing as, “just too uncool, Dad,” and he resigned himself to spending a few hours updating his entire wardrobe. 

“I really will get two rooms, right?”

She looked up at him from her perch on the end of the bed. He had a feeling that the question wasn’t exactly what - she wanted to ask something else.

“That’s right,” he plopped down, sitting on the suitcase and hopping a bit to make it close, feeling a little spark in his chest when Lily giggled.

“And you can come stay whenever you like, you know?”

“Really?”

“Really really,” he put his arm around her and squeezed, “You’ll always be my little girl, and I’ll always be your dad.”

“Dad,” she whined at his tight hug, elbowing him, “Ugh, don’t be soppy.”

He laughed and let go - her elbows were actually quite sharp - holding his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

“What am I going to do with you, Lil-bear?”

She looked up at him, narrowed her eyes.

“Love me forever, ‘course.” 

The words held more - more conversations they’d need to have, more years to come but in a different pattern, more truths she wasn’t old enough for, yet.

But, for now, he knew what to say.

“Oh, yes,” he kissed the top of her head, “I suppose you must be right.”

She leaned on him, her small body tucked perfectly under his chin.

“Just like always.”

“Just like always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist tracks: "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie (Reality version) and "Papaoutai" by Stromae. 
> 
> "We like dancing and we look divine  
> You love bands when they're playing hard  
> You want more and you want it fast." 
> 
> "Un jour ou l'autre on sera tous papa  
> Et d'un jour à l'autre on aura disparu  
> Serons-nous détestables ?  
> Serons-nous admirables ?"


	17. Chapter 17

“You know,” he was running his fingers over the light down of Draco’s arm, “I still technically have a hotel room.”

“Mm?” Draco hummed, eyes closed.

“I mean, you know I go there to get my clothes and stuff.”

“Mmm.”

Draco was often incoherent after his morning shift, and they usually spent afternoons lazing about in bed, drifting in and out of sleep.

“Even though a bunch of stuff is here, now.”

“Potter,” he muttered, still not opening his eyes, “Why are you talking?”

He laughed, quietly.

“Sorry,” he kissed the top of Draco’s head, “Just thinking.”

“Well stop.”

“Alright, alright. I just thought…”

“Argghh,” Draco grumbled, “Okay, tell me what it is, then shut your fucking gob.”

“I was thinking it would be nice if we, you know, stayed over at the hotel. Got room service. Had a bath.”

“A bath,” he picked his head up and raised his eyebrows, “Are you trying to tell me something?” 

Harry slapped his arm, “I’m telling you… I want to do something nice. For you.”

“Oh,” Draco turned pink, then made a haughty face, “As you should.”

“So, tonight? We can stay in?”

“Yes, yes, alright, very nice, shut up.”

Harry chuckled, kissing him again, “You’re so charming, Draco Malfoy. That must be why I -”

Draco snored.

Harry’s heart beat hard and fast.

It was probably for the best that he’d fallen back asleep.

…..

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

He’d just unlocked the door to his hotel room. Draco stepped in, took one look around, and whirled on Harry.

“You’ve had this room the whole time?”

He shrugged, embarrassed.

“I know, it’s too nice, I didn’t really need to -”

“You are the biggest idiot in the world,” Draco looked pretty offended, then froze, “I’m going to look in the bathroom!”

Harry stood, still half in the door, wondering just how badly he’d messed up.

Draco’s excited voice called out - “Oh Merlin’s arse, this tub would fit both of us…”

He laughed, shut the door behind him, listening to Draco’s muttering.

“Could anybody really be this thick, living in my awful flat for… God, the towels are so soft… I may well kill him…”

“Everything alright in there?” He sat on the edge of the bed.

“Everything alright, sure, now he asks...” he kept mumbling as he came back into the room and put his hands on his hips, “Well.”

“So it passes Malfoy inspection, hmm?” 

He leaned back onto his elbows, toeing off his shoes. Draco flopped down next to him and sighed, then waggled his hand around.

“I suppose it is sufficient.”

Harry reached over, grabbed the waggling hand, held it.

“It would be better, of course, with champagne.”

“Oh, right. I’ll, er,” he knew he had the number for the front desk somewhere, “I’ll call down, shall I?”

“You shall not. I am highly proficient at the telephone.”

“You just want to order people around.”

Draco looked over at him, very serious, then his mouth twitched and he started to laugh.

“Yes, I really do.”

Champagne ordered and delivered - and Draco did do very well, though he did shout into the phone, a bit - Harry ran a steaming hot bath.

“Let me,” he grabbed Draco, a little too rough, and ran his hands under his shirt, along the taut muscles of his abdomen.

He undressed him slowly, raising gooseflesh on every inch of skin he touched.

“What are you doing, Potter?”

“Taking my time.”

He knelt, unbuttoning Draco’s jeans, inching the zipper down, dragging his fingers over his wiry thighs. He rubbed his face along Draco’s prick - already very interested, fuck yes - and breathed in his scent. 

“God, I could do this forever.”

Draco wound his hands through Harry’s hair and pulled, tilting his face up.

“Potter,” his voice was quiet and still, like the near-scalding surface of the bathwater, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Alright?”

Harry nuzzled his face into Draco’s hand, nodding and closing his eyes, and he slid his pants to the floor. He licked Draco, root to tip, and Draco groaned, pushing his prick into Harry’s watering mouth. 

Harry moaned around him. Draco laughed, rich and thick like treacle, and shoved him away. 

“Take your own clothes off, will you?”

“Eager for the bath, hmm?”

“Do shut up, Harry,” he stepped into the tub, pure, milky skin sliding under the water, “And come here.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

He did wonder, as he ripped off his clothes and gasped his way into the hot water, why he felt the way he did, all light and fluttery, when the bloke he was so busy fucking told him to shut up.

Because it’s Malfoy, a hidden part of him whispered. It’s always been like this. 

He nestled himself between Draco’s legs, Draco’s firm cock pressed up against his arse.

“Fuck, this is good,” he relaxed back onto silken skin, made slippery with bath oil. 

“See Potter, a little luxury never hurt anyone.”

“I think you may have convinced me,” he moved back, rubbing himself over Draco’s prick, feeling it catch between his cheeks.

“Naughty,” Draco shifted behind him, picking up the glasses of chilled champagne he’d placed on the sink, “Here, lo-,” he cleared his throat, “Harry.”

It had been like this for two weeks, now. Both of them, dancing around it, and it was too soon and too fast, but it seemed like a universal truth, like there was nothing other than this, this fact, the way they felt about each other.

Harry sipped cold champagne, nose tickling from the bubbles, and he clenched.

“Fuck, Harry.”

He turned, setting down his glass again, and climbed on top of Draco, water sloshing over to the floor. He ran his hand over his neck, over the firm planes of Draco’s chest, his tight pink nipples, down over his stomach, gripping onto his cock. 

He stroked, slowly, pressure just a hair too light, and watched the mingled frustration and pleasure shifting on Draco’s face.

“I want to do something.”

Draco rolled his eyes back.

“Well you should bloody well do it.”

He laughed, then bent over and kissed that spot under Draco’s ear.

“I want you to fuck me.”

While he spoke, he pulled, firmer, and Draco tensed, gasped, and came.

“Er,” Draco blushed a little and thunked his head back on the edge of the tub, “I think we’d better wait a minute.”

He dropped his head to Draco’s neck. Tried not to laugh. Started smiling against his skin.

And giggled.

“Are you laughing at me, Potter?”

“No,” he tried to hold on to himself, “Not at all, never.”

“I’ll have you know that you had nothing to do with that,” he shifted, lifting his head and grumbling.

Harry kept his face where it was, grinning.

“No?”

“It was the bath, obviously.”

“You get turned on by baths?”

“Well,” still prickly, but running his hands gently over Harry’s arse, “What else do you do in a bath? It’s just a… common association.” 

He picked his head up and kissed Draco, right at the corner of his mouth where he kept his secret smiles. 

“Makes sense.”

“Of course. Now get off me, I’m boiling.”

They dried off, thoroughly taking advantage of the fluffy towels, and fell back onto the bed. Draco reached for Harry’s - achingly hard - cock, but he slapped the hand away.

“Just - let me.”

Harry got up onto his knees, sat back on his heels.

Draco’s eyes were so soft, the grey as misty and ephemeral as Irish rain.

“You planning on putting on a show?”

He gestured towards Harry’s prick, practically dripping with precome, but Harry shook his head, shy. But then he felt a sense of resolve -

He wanted everything. Every stupid, sexy, dirty thing - he wanted it all. 

Harry lifted one of Draco’s legs, planting his foot on the mattress, then the other.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up, Draco.”

“Well, I never -” his voice came to an abrupt stop as Harry mouthed at the tender skin of his inner thighs.

He wanted - he wanted to memorize all of him, all of this skin like new ivory, all his little sounds and sighs. He licked the juncture between his legs, sucking on the soft skin, the fine seam between his bollocks; he swallowed around his prick, rapidly filling, taking him in as far as he could. Weeks and weeks of this - he knew Draco’s body, knew that he could fit him down the back of his throat, nose pressed into curled golden hair. 

Pulling off, Draco whimpered - and Harry moved his mouth, down, and lifted Draco’s legs over his shoulders.

“Harry -”

“Shh.”

Draco was sweet and smooth from oil, and Harry pressed the flat of his tongue against his entrance, then kissed him there, filthy, the way he kissed his mouth.

“Ohhh -”

Draco’s legs clenched and released and kicked at his back. 

“Ow, you fucker,” Harry muttered, then licked around Draco’s rim in a spiraling curl.

“You - sweet Morgana fuck - you try staying still, when -”

Harry sucked hard - he smelled so good, how was he always so perfect - then laved him with gentle swipes of his tongue when Draco dug his heels under his shoulder blades. 

“Jesus, why are you so rough…”

Draco moaned, high and long, and breathed out, shaking, “You know you love it.”

“I do,” he wrapped a hand around Draco’s cock - hard and hot and fuck, so ready - and pushed two fingers into him, curling up. Draco raised his chest, head thrown back, stomach concave - and he was like a fucking sculpture, right here in this moment, in marble, glittering, something fit for a museum, something to worship.

“If you still want me to - ah, please, right there - to fuck you…”

Harry pressed, once more, against that bundle of nerves - left his fingers there, still, while he leaned over Draco and kissed his mouth. Draco wiggled and he pulled his fingers away.

“Harry, have you,” he was quiet, and blushed a light pink, “Have you really never done that before?”

“I told you,” he dropped his body, his cock brushing up against Draco’s, and they both moaned, “I’ve never done anything.”

Draco chuckled low and dirty, “Well, you are a fucking natural.”

Harry thrust down.

“Have you ever - I mean has anyone else -”

He pulled back to catch Draco’s eyes, which were clear and entirely guileless as he shook his head.

“Only you.” 

“God, I love that,” he reached down and wrapped his hand around the base of his cock, “I wanna be the first and the la-”

Draco made a sound, an angry animal sound, and flipped them over. He sat back and pulled at Harry’s hips - Harry felt his softened skin rasp against the cotton sheets, his arse nearly in Draco’s lap. Draco growled again, held out a hand, and the bottle of lube they’d tucked in an overnight case shot into his palm. 

The first bit of magic he’d seen him do all summer.

“Draco, what -”

He poured lube on his fingers, a whole mess of it, and wrapped both hands around Harry’s nearly painfully hard cock. Three quick pulls, and then he stopped, running his left hand down, one finger resting against his arsehole.

“Do you trust me?”

Harry lifted his own hand, twined it with Draco’s right, slick with lube and precome, and he was deadly serious.

“Draco, I do.”

“Thank fuck,” and he slid a finger in.

It was new, and it was strange, and it was perfect. Draco was gentle with him - not tentative, no, but - almost reverent. Harry felt him slip in another finger, and the stretch was so good, because it was Draco stretching him, Draco’s long fingers, his smell everywhere, his face so serene and predatory and that twitch in his eye that showed he was nervous. He looked dangerous, like something untamed, and he held Harry in his hand like a bird he could crush, and when he found Harry’s prostate it was like coming home. 

“Please, Draco -”

“What do you want?”

“Please, I -”

“Tell me, come on.”

“Draco,” he nearly cried out, but maybe it was more like a whimper, “Please, fuck me.”

Draco pulled Harry’s hips up further, leaned forward, pressed in. And it hurt, God how it hurt, but it seemed like the real hurt was somewhere else, in him, because after about five seconds he felt full and fantastic and fucking cared for and cradled and - and -

“God, your face.”

“Kiss me.”

Draco leaned forward, Harry curled around him, holding on too tightly, both leaving bruises. Harry’s prick was swollen, rubbing against Draco’s stomach, and Draco was just thrusting home, over and over, and he kissed him like it was air and they were drowning, and -

“Fuck, I love you -”

And it was Harry who said it, and Draco growled again like a bear in a trap, bit that place on Harry’s neck which never had time, now, to heal, and Harry pulsed and poured out what felt like a lifetime of come, holding onto Draco like a vise. 

“You bastard, you fucking -” Draco’s movements stuttered, shuddering, and he came with this sound like - like -

He fell onto Harry, smearing come over both of them.

“I told you. I told you, not to make promises you can’t keep.”

He was shaking. Harry held him and kissed his ear and he might have been sorry for making such an awful mess of things but fuck, that had been absolutely incredible, and it was true that for those few blinding seconds he’d never loved anything the way he loved Draco.

And that was just the way it was. 

“So what’d you think?” Draco’s voice was calm, almost bored, as he rolled off and stared at the ceiling, still panting, “Is the great Harry Potter a bottom after all?”

He turned his head, looked at Harry, mouth mocking but eyes soft.

“Oh, I dunno,” he nudged Draco’s shoulder, “I may need to try it a few more times. Just to be sure.”

Draco wrinkled his nose, one of those hidden smiles at the corner of his mouth. And he closed his eyes and sighed.

“I’ll have to check my schedule.”

“Oh, nice.”

“Now be a love,” his voice caught, “And bring me my fucking champagne.”

In the morning - after three more rounds, and he’d had to tap out after the second, sore and stretched and dripping but fucking reborn - they checked out of the hotel with all of Harry’s belongings.

“You sure?” Harry walked close to Draco on the pavement, stumbling only a little.

“Yeah,” Draco lit up a cigarette, shoulders tight, “I just don’t want to get used to it.”

He passed a cigarette over to Harry - who nearly missed him, in the click and whoosh of the lighter, saying,

“And I love you too, you horrible motherfucker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Feeling Good" by Sammy Davis Jr. 
> 
> "Sleep in peace when day is done, that's what I mean  
> And this old world is a new world  
> And a bold world  
> For me"


	18. Chapter 18

He’d never expected to be in the headmaster’s office again.

Though knowing the nonsense that Scorpius could get up to, he probably should have.

Longbottom - and who knew he’d be headmaster, but he seemed to be good at it - had firecalled him around 10:00 at night. He’d been going over his investment portfolio - and his former housemates were doing very well, Pans with her estates, Greg with the Belgian chocolates, Blaise rolling in galleons since he figured out the charms for those muggle music devices - and had just changed into his dressing gown. Hoping to get a good night’s sleep; praying that he wouldn’t dream about -

But there was Longbottom’s face in the fire, still nervous-looking but, he had to admit it, rather more handsome than he remembered. 

Now, in this office filled with spinning magical accoutrements and a ridiculous number of plants, Draco looked up at the many portraits, avoiding Scorpius’s pitiful pose. 

Like that was going to work. Draco had practically invented that particular pout.

His godfather stared down at him, eyebrow lifted, a hint of a smirk warming his sallow face. 

Dumbledore’s eyes retained their twinkle. He looked far too delighted, given the circumstances of this meeting. The old nutter.

He sighed heavily and turned his eyes back to his only child.

“Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. Would you care to tell me why I’ve been called here at 10:00 at night?”

Scorpius fiddled with the sleeves of his robes. He muttered something inaudible.

“Go on, Scorp,” this from Longbottom, who sounded altogether too forgiving. 

Gryffindors.

“I wanted to make a potion,” he managed the well-bred Malfoy tone, but his face was pure Black - stubborn, mutinous, with a hint of self-righteousness.

It was actually a bit funny. Also quite irritating.

It sounded suspiciously like Potter.

“This is something you had to do now, when you should have been in bed?”

“Well,” he lingered on the word, drawing it out, “I needed to get an ingredient from the Forbidden Forest.”

“Oh really?” 

“And I had to gather it at night, ‘cause it only blooms on the full moon.”

Draco had a visceral flash of a long-blurred memory - detention in the forest, and the dark figure, and silvery blood spilled on rotting leaves. 

His voice was calm, but cold.

“Did you think that going into the forest might be dangerous? And that it is, for that reason, forbidden?”

“Well, we took the cloak, so nothing could see us.”

Longbottom shifted, with maybe a hint of guilt.

So he’d known about Potter’s invisibility cloak, then. 

He was cursed, that must have been it, to deal with idiot Gryffindors for the rest of his life.

“So you decided to go into the Forbidden Forest under an invisibility cloak. And the ‘we’ means you and Albus, I presume?”

“Er, yes.”

“Which you did, successfully.”

Scorpius nodded.

“But then you tripped, coming back down the stairs to the dungeons, and fell out from under the cloak,” another nod, “And you were found out by your head of house.”

Hecate help him, Scorpius looked more repentant about his clumsiness than about the whole “danger to life and limb” portion of the evening.

And then Draco had a thought.

“Scorpius,” he said, still in a calm but not altogether pleasant voice, “Is Albus here right now?”

Scorpius looked to his right, just moving his eyes.

He should have known. 

He sort of wanted to laugh.

“Albus, come on out, would you?”

A head with messy black hair appeared - and another flashback, that totally mortifying snowball fight - and he saw glittering green eyes which did not, at all, convey remorse. He balled up the cloak in his hands and fidgeted.

“And what was your role in these... unseemly proceedings?”

“I read about the potion, sir, and me and Scorp thought we could make it.”

Ah.

It was a very sad day indeed when a Potter was the brains of the operation. Draco sighed, rubbed his eyes, longing fervently for a glass of brandy and his bed. 

“I don’t even want to ask what the potion was… I think I may need to call your father.”

“Yes, sir. But, Mr. Malfoy, if you want to speak to my mum, she’s probably already here,” he gestured towards Longbottom, who’d had his face in his hands since Al appeared, “In the headmaster’s quarters.”

A squeak and widened eyes from Longbottom. Interesting.

“Ah,” pushing that very firmly to the side, at least for the moment, Draco leaned forward, “I’ll take that into consideration. Do you two understand why you’re in trouble?”

“‘Cause we got caught?” That from Scorpius, Slytherin through and through.

He was technically correct, of course. Not that Draco would admit that.

“No, Scorpius. Albus. It’s because what you did was very dangerous,” he ran his hand through his hair, considering pulling it out, “You can’t just go into the forest, expecting to emerge perfectly safely - good gods, your teachers didn’t even know where you were!”

“But Dad - you did all sorts of dangerous things when you were at Hogwarts! And Mr. Potter -”

“Do you think we want you to be equally at risk?” He almost yelled.

“Boys,” Longbottom’s reprove was quiet, “We had to dangerous things, back then, so you wouldn’t have to.”

“Oh,” Al looked down down again, frowning, “Right.”

Both boys did look chastened - but Draco had a sense that this wouldn’t be the last late night firecall in their seven years of schooling. 

He sighed.

“Alright. Headmaster, what consequences do you recommend?”

“Two weeks’ detention,” Scorpius gasped, “And thirty points. Each.”

“Neville -” Draco blinked in surprise as Albus used Longbottom’s first name, a shocking breach of decorum.

“Do you think you don’t deserve it?” 

He could actually sound quite stern. He did kill that horrible snake, after all.

Scorpius nudged Albus, who slumped and muttered, “No, headmaster.”

A pause - Longbottom was really good at this authority thing, letting the silence stretch ominously.

“Now go on to bed, boys.”

They nodded, stood, heads bowed. 

“Scorpius,” Draco called him over, took him by the shoulders, and wrapped him in a firm embrace, “Just be safe, alright?”

Scorpius hugged him back, “Yeah, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

He watched the boys as they walked towards the door, and if he noticed the smirks they sent each other - already planning something else, no doubt - he let himself ignore it. He leaned back in his chair and threw a glance at Longbottom under half-lidded eyes.

“So Ginevra, hmm?”

Longbottom colored. Utter silence in the room, other than a disgusted grumble from Sev’s portrait and the sound of a fine mist falling over the many plants. 

And then a door creaking open as the woman in question stepped out - in a rather too clingy nightdress - from what he’d thought was an empty closet. His heart thumped, missing a beat.

Longbottom was bright red at this point.

“You handled that well, Malfoy,” she plopped herself down in the chair across from him, “Thanks. I didn’t want to come out, given…” She gestured at her lack of appropriate attire.

“No,” he felt an hysterical laugh at the back of his throat, totally undignified, “I don’t suppose you would have.”

“Our kids are such a mess, aren’t they?” She shook her head, then grinned, “Nothing like we were, of course.”

“Of course,” he felt a bit faint.

“Nev, Luna’s still natterning on about humdingers or something, could you please come back to bed and shut her up for a while?”

What?

Draco’s mind started filling in the gaps, to his everlasting horror. Neville, who looked like he wished the floor would swallow him up. Ginevra, in a negligee, freckles on shocking display. And Luna, apparently, his charmingly mad cousin, who was in their...

His vision went all wibbly around the edges.

He became aware of the fact that his mouth was hanging open, probably very unattractively. He closed it with an audible clack of his teeth.

“I think perhaps I should take my leave,” he stood quickly, needing to be anywhere but here, with Longbottom - who truly appeared like he wished Nagini had gotten him instead - and his ex-lover’s ex-wife in her scandalous bedwear.

“Didn’t take you for a prude, Malfoy,” she teased.

He grinded his teeth and considered telling her where, exactly, her so-called straight husband had on many memorable occasions put his mouth. 

Prude, ha.

“I’m sorry, Malfoy - Draco -” Ginny reached out and caught his wrist, “Look…”

He looked down at her hand, which she then took back, grimacing.

“I just wanted to say… I don’t want you to think I hate you, or anything,” her lips puckered like she was sucking a lemon. 

“No?” He looked away, slumping, “You have - there are reasons why you might.”

Her eyes softened.

“Yeah. But,” she sat up straight, firm, “What happened when we were kids - all of that - I know you, I know you didn’t get to make a lot of your own choices.”

He felt his shoulders tense up around his ears, and his arm burned, “I still did what I did,” a deep breath, “And with Harry -”

“I have no illusions that Harry wasn’t the arsehole in that situation.”

His head shot up, and she continued.

“My hus-” she rolled her eyes, “Harry Potter is many wonderful things. A great Dad, a good Auror, all that. But I know, better than most, that he can be a selfish prick.”

“Oh,” he felt very small. And kind of vindicated, a gift he didn’t expect to receive from Ginny Potter.

“And he’s also very easy to love,” it came out in a rush, “I understand -”

“Ginevra…”

She stood, facing him, and with uncharacteristic tenderness took his face in her hands.

“I’m not angry at you, alright? I know that you - you and he -” she blew out a breath. His cheeks tingled where she touched them.

“Just. Thank you.”

She was thanking him, and for what? 

He remembered staring at her picture in the paper - beautiful and ethereal in the engagement photo, in a canary-yellow sundress, Harry holding her, and he’d hated her with such bitterness that he thought he’d never recover, and he smoked a whole pack of cigarettes and ashed all over her perfect fucking face.

He laughed, still bitter in the deepest parts of him, “Why? Why thank you?”

Her eyes were kind, meeting his, like she knew exactly how he felt.

“For letting me borrow him for a while.” 

He couldn’t say anything, words and doubts and shame stuck in his chest. She patted his cheek and let him go.

He was back in the manor by 11:30, undressed and under the covers by 11:35, and he still felt her hands on his face. He spread out, naked skin delighting in cerulean silk sheets, nestling himself in the middle of his down mattress. 

He couldn’t sleep.

At midnight, he got up, sat at his desk, and penned an owl in his looping, graceful hand before he could stop himself. Just four words, and maybe - maybe he could have -

He read it over, once more, and sealed it to be sent in the morning. As he lay in bed, the words echoed, over and over, so endless that he heard them in his sleep -

“Harry,

We should talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "I'd Love to Change the World" by Jetta, Matstubs. "I'd love to change the world/But I don't know what to do."


	19. Chapter 19

“Should we get a cat, do you think?”

He was in their tiny kitchenette, fully nude, staring at the remains of Harry’s box of sugar - holes chewed straight through, and granules loose on the counter.

When Draco had decided to run the hell away from everything - from the stupid things he’d done, from his mother who always judged him despite her own unforgivable mistakes, from the burden and deep shame of visiting Father in Azkaban, the horrible wrecked manor and the curses he dodged in Diagon Alley - he hadn’t realized that his new life would involve… vermin.

“Mm.”

“Helpful,” he looked over at Harry, who was still in bed, the layabout, “Harry.”

He didn’t move.

Draco walked over to the bed, kneeling on the edge, swinging one leg over to straddle him. He grabbed both of his hands and pinned them over his head, then twisted his hips, grinding down.

“Harry Potter,” he gripped his wrists, leaned down to place lingering kisses on the stretch of neck he always kept bruised and that Harry never healed, “Are you listening to me?”

Harry struggled under him and thrust up, not trying to get away but ready to fight, “I am now,” Draco sucked on an earlobe, “You kinky bastard.”

“Good,” he sat back, straightened his hair, and grinned, “So?”

Harry grabbed his hips and flipped them over, shoving Draco’s knees up, pushing against him, “So what?” 

“Do you - ah - think we should - Christ, alright, find the lube - get a cat?” 

Harry wet his fingers and shoved in two, then three, in quick succession, Draco still slippery and loose from their first fuck once he got home from going over the club’s books with Colin. 

“A - your arsehole, so perfect, Draco, I swear to God - cat?”

“Yeah,” his voice was high, too loud, and Harry thrust in with one smooth slide, “Oh, please -”

Harry set a punishing pace, tilting his hips up and stroking incessantly against Draco’s prostate, grabbing his cock with his come- and lube-drenched fingers, jerking him fast and rough.

“Oh holy fuck, Harry -”

There was little tenderness here - and that was okay, sometimes they needed this; sometimes one or both of them needed something harder, more painful, to fuck away the bad stuff. Memories. Ghosts. Sins.

Secrets. 

Draco’s eyes rolled back in his head, breath heavy, and he clawed at Harry’s arms, almost drawing blood - his whole body tensed up, and Harry pulled out and wrapped his hand around both of them and fuck, he’d never get over the feeling of coming with Harry at the same time. 

After, Harry was solicitous, kissing over his stomach, smoothing his tongue against his roughened entrance, wiping him clean.

“Not that I’m complaining,” he ran his fingers through Harry’s hair, a disaster as always, “But what was that?”

“Mm,” he propped his chin on Draco’s chest but looked away, “Just… in the mood, I guess. For that.”

“Alright,” he ruffled his hair, “So. Cat, or no cat?”

Harry rolled over, staring at the ceiling.

He didn’t reach over and take Draco’s hand.

“I have no opinion on cat.”

“So,” he nudged him with his elbow, “Cat.”

“Sure, Draco,” he closed his eyes, smiling halfway, “You can get a cat.”

…..

August was nearing its end.

Many of the summer exchange students had already gone home - back to their boyfriends and girlfriends, their normal lives, where they’d give smiling kisses and lie a little and never really tell the truth about what they’d done. The city wasn’t empty, but there was a feeling of waiting. An idleness.

Even so, Friday night and Chambers was full up, shots being poured at the bar, and Harry was drinking one of those fruity, turquoise things that smelled like tanning lotion. It was his third - and Draco’d been keeping up, shots of whiskey, and the night was hot and stifling, and they grabbed ice cubes from behind the bar and ran them over each other’s necks while they danced. Licking up the water, the hint of shimmer he’d finally convinced Harry to wear. 

They were perfectly in tune, knowing each movement of their bodies, knowing the ways they fit. He held onto the thick muscles of Harry’s arse - fuck, he was hot - and rubbed his full cock along Harry’s, just cheap fabric and sweat between them.

Harry had a fourth drink. Draco took another shot.

Midnight in Cork, in the summertime, getting down to the last three cigarettes in the pack, good craic with the DJ between sets, passing a joint around, and if Harry seemed - if he felt just slightly different - they were just drunk and high and dehydrated and -

“Come on.”

He took Harry’s wrist, pulling him off the dance floor, shoving him into the toilets.

“What’re you -”

“I’ve been wanting to do this for months,” he pressed Harry back, up against the sinks, and concentrated on his magic just enough to lock the door, wandlessly. He felt the smooth surface of Harry’s abdomen, the dark buds of his nipples, as he ran his hands under his thin shirt and kissed him, feasting at his mouth.

Harry kissed back like he always did - rough but tender, and breaking. 

“That first night -”

“Yeah,” he smirked down at him from his not quite two inch advantage, “I owe you one.”

He dropped to his knees. Music pumped, rhythmic and toneless, and the graffiti glittered on the walls, and he rubbed his face against the twitching mass of Harry’s prick.

And he paused.

“I do, you know,” he started speaking to Harry’s zipper, but looked up and met his too-green eyes, “Owe you.”

He lowered the zip, pushed the jeans down, glad he’d adequately conveyed to Harry that pants were a waste of time. He smelled so good, like dancing, like flying, like something both ancient and brand new. 

Like magic.

He opened his mouth, licked delicately around the head, sucked, just a little, and pulled off.

“Thank you,” Harry’s face looking down at him was so beautiful, so serious… “Thank you for coming back for me.”

“Draco, I -” he wove his fingers through Draco’s golden hair, shaking.

“Thank you for the gift of my life,” he tongued at the slit, held the base of Harry’s cock in a firm grip, and winked, “Now pull my hair and fuck my face, will you?”

Harry laughed, and maybe he was also crying a little, and he did pull his hair, and Draco took him down all the way, until Harry gave a choked moan and pushed him back -

“Fuck me.”

And Draco bent him over the sink, their flushed, damp faces panting in the mirror, Harry’s scar as red as blood, Draco’s black mark visible as he held himself against the wall, and it must have been close to the way that dragons make love, high up in the air, with sparks and shards of lightning. 

And when Draco came, he watched his own face as he whimpered out, almost against his will, “God, I love you.”

Harry reached behind him, kept Draco buried deep, cried, came, and whispered back, flat, “Love you too, you tosser.”

Back at the flat - as they cleaned themselves up, went back for drinks, for more dancing - a mouse skittered over parchment, crumpled up and shoved under the bed. A bit of writing flashed in the shift of light - “Dear Harry,” it said, and there might have been other words, letters like W, maybe, or G - but the rest was hidden in shadow and ash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "bury a friend" by Billie Eilish. 
> 
> "Today, I'm thinkin' about the things that are deadly  
> The way I'm drinkin' you down  
> Like I wanna drown, like I wanna end me"


	20. Chapter 20

The owl had arrived first thing, Harry barely out of bed, still in soft flannel pyjama bottoms and a threadbare t-shirt. Four words from Draco - and they sounded anything but cheerful, but Harry let himself, in this sleepy first hour of waking, imagine his smile. He wrote back immediately, his answer guaranteed before he’d put quill to parchment - “Come over.”

He’d dropped Lily off with Molly and Arthur last night - her grandparents were always so pleased to take her, and despite recent events, Molly had gathered him up in a big hug. Maybe she saw on his face the deep discomfort that he felt, there in the house where they had always welcomed him - he didn’t understand how she could still, somehow, care for him. 

“We wish you had felt like you could tell us,” Arthur had said, clutching a cup of tea, his shoulders heavy but his voice so kind, as Harry and Gin had gone over to tell them the news, what was happening and why, “We wouldn’t have loved you any less.”

He still found that hard to believe, even though - he needed that love so desperately.

And now he had his own home, and life was moving forward, and he imagined Molly and Arthur in this space, the first people who fed him, still the first adults who cared. The grandparents of his children. His family.

It was late autumn, the sun still misty over the rooftops below his flat, brief fragments of light refracted by the large, charmed windows, giving his living space a rainbow sheen. Harry stumbled down the stairs, lit the fire - even though the flat was temperature-controlled with a complex weaving of warming and cooling charms, he liked to keep it just shy of too cold. He had so many fond memories of the fire burning in the Gryffindor common room, and he didn’t see why he should deny himself, as an adult, the cozy atmosphere of crackling logs and pine-scented smoke. 

It was his flat, after all - his own space, the first home that was truly his, and his alone.

He tried not to feel like it was empty.

With all of the furnishings in place, he hadn’t needed to make a lot of purchases, but the first - and most expensive - houseware he’d bought was a top of the line espresso machine. As he handed over his Gringotts charge card, he’d ignored the fact that he, himself, wasn’t that invested in high-quality espresso. It just -

It made sense, right? To have it. For guests, and such.

Creamy, too-sweet coffee in hand, he fell back into the deep plush of the velvet settee. He propped his feet up, right over the left, and looked out over London.

Luxury really was - it wasn’t what he’d been used to. When he’d first seen the heaps of gold in his family’s vault - and then the larger amount in the Black vaults - he’d felt… not excited, not really. It had almost felt like shame. How could he justify it, being wealthy, when he’d survived perfectly well on table scraps, on a lumpy pallet in a cupboard? He wanted more than that, of course, but wealth…. He didn’t feel like he deserved it.

But here, in front of a roaring fire, nestled into deep cushions, a view over the city, croissants in the pantry and warm drinks whenever he wanted them - 

It was nice.

He thought Draco would be comfortable, here. 

The panel next to the lift - a complex weaving of magi-muggle tech, with a private Sonorus charm linked up with wiring - chimed.

“Potter,” a chilled and familiar voice.

“Er,” he walked to the panel, pushed what he hoped was the proper button, “Hi.”

A long pause, in which he could practically taste Draco’s customary morning irritation.

“Are you going to let me up?”

“Just scan in, you’re still keyed in to the wards.”

“Oh,” then silence. Another chime, and a light flashing above the lift.

He didn’t know what to do with himself, palms sweating, feet icy. 

He started preparing a second cup of espresso. Because, well, it seemed like a better idea than staring at the lift like a nutter.

Though the lift doors, he had to admit, were pretty neat. As Draco reached the top floor, a one-way transparency charm revealed him - yet another piece of magic security. Draco was patting down his hair, tousled by the autumn wind.

He was so handsome.

And right before the doors opened, he smoothed his face out in that remote Malfoy stare, all traces of nervousness gone.

Harry missed, fiercely, the days when he could have all of Draco, when he didn’t put on his masks. But losing that closeness, that vulnerability, was his own damned fault. 

He’d been so fucking stupid.

He quickly looked away, down at the coffee.

“Your child is a menace.”

Draco certainly knew how to make an entrance.

Harry set down the espresso.

“Which one?” At Draco’s confused look, he clarified, “Jamie is a menace to your face. Al’s a menace behind your back.”

“While I do not doubt that all of your family is as much of a disaster as you are,” he came over, pulled out a barstool, perched on it ram-rod straight, “I am referring, of course, to your Slytherin progeny.”

“Ah,” Draco held out his hand, waving it a bit, and Harry handed over the coffee before realising what he was doing, “Al. Yeah. What’d he do?”

“He,” Draco took a sip, moaned, “Merlin, this is good. He convinced my son to go wandering the Forbidden Forest, at night, for potions ingredients.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open, “No.”

“Mm. Under your invisibility cloak, no less. Thanks ever so for sending that along with dear Albus Severus.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing.

“That maybe wasn’t the best idea…”

Draco scoffed.

“What is it with you Gryffindors? Bumbling along into danger -”

“Al’s Slytherin,” and then he mumbled, “So’s Scorp, if you’ll remember -”

“Like that matters, he’s clearly been influenced by his parents. And let me tell you, his parents…”

“Oi!” Harry walked around him to the couch, and Draco swiveled on his barstool.

“Do you know what I discovered when I was dragged to the headmaster’s office at 10:00 last night?” Draco smiled like a shark, all sharp angles and teeth. Like he was about to go for the jugular and enjoy the hell out of it.

Harry fell back, picked up his coffee. He had a feeling that he knew what was coming.

“Your wife -”

“Ex-wife -”

“In lingerie,” he looked both disgusted and delighted at what he felt was scandalous gossip.

Harry laughed, “Surely she wasn’t in lingerie in front of Al and Scorp.”

“No,” he frowned, “She was hiding in a closet. So that’s another family characteristic, I suppose.”

Harry snorted and patted the seat next to him.

“Come ‘ere.”

Draco rolled his eyes, put upon, “If I must.” 

Clutching his mug, he came over and sat primly on the far end of the couch - as far from Harry as he could get. Harry sighed.

“I knew about Gin and Nev.”

“Did you.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “I’m happy for them.”

Draco relaxed back, that secret smile pulling at his lips, and slanted his eyes over, “But did you know about Luna?”

“Hmm?”

Draco crossed his left leg over his right, angling towards Harry. 

“Apparently she’s also spending quite a bit of time in the headmaster’s quarters. With both of them.”

“Ha!” Harry was startled into a sudden laugh, “What?”

“Oh yes. Everybody’s a little bit queer, it turns out. Who would have guessed?”

“Except Nev.”

“Neville Longbottom, slaying snakes and swimming in fanny.”

Harry spread out, legs open, nudging his knee against Draco’s foot, “That’s my ex-wife you’re talking about.”

“And my cousin. Ugh,” Draco wrinkled his nose, took a sip of coffee, “Let’s move on, shall we?” 

They sat quietly, the fire sparking, and it should have been uncomfortable, all the history between them, but it just felt so good - at least to Harry. Here, with Draco, in his new flat, the smell of coffee and smoke, and he was exactly where he wanted to be.

“I’m glad you took this place,” Draco murmured.

“Me too,” he put his arm along the back cushions, hand just centimetres from Draco’s neck, “Thanks again for the help.”

Draco colored, looked at his lap, “Yes, well…”

“It suits you more than it does me, really. But I like it,” quietly, “Just the way I like y-”

“Potter,” he met his eyes, storm-grey, angry, scared, “What - don’t start something -”

“But I want to, Draco,” he placed his cup down, pulse racing, and turned, tucking his leg under, staring, “I want you, God, how I -”

“Shut up,” his face was tight, “Just -”

He breathed in deep, closed his eyes, ground out, “Walk away from me. To the windows.”

Another choice, another cliff, another house plummeting to the ground.

Harry had never been so certain and so terrified at the same time.

He went to the windows, staring out over London, and hoped. It was so quiet. Then a low voice, closer than he expected, almost in his ear.

“Put your hands on the glass.”

He felt the autumn chill against his palms.

“I’m - I’m going to talk, a little, and if I say anything you don’t like, tell me to stop.”

“I won’t.”

“Fine. Know that you have the option.”

He felt Draco’s hand, running down his ribcage, over the side of his abdomen, over his hip. The hand exerted delicate force, tilting his hips up and back. His skin prickled into gooseflesh, hot and freezing at the same time.

“Spread your legs,” Harry complied quickly, “Well done.”

How could he have forgotten, for even one second, what that voice could do to him? He felt his cock, filling, thick and heavy against his pyjamas. 

Draco dropped his forehead to the back of his neck and breathed, frustrated, pained, “Why do I let you -”

“You can do anything you want, Draco. Anything.”

A bitter laugh. He pulled away, voice turning clinical.

“Take one hand off the glass. Pull your trousers down,” Harry moved at once, “Slowly, Potter.”

The flannel was buttery-soft, sliding down his arse, catching on his damp prick. Sweat beaded between his shoulder blades. He felt slender fingers and sharp nails against his skin, spreading him.

“Have you let anyone else fuck you?”

His voice was detached, but there was something, some insecurity he couldn’t hide.

“No,” he shook, “Never.”

“Good.”

“Have you -”

“You don’t get to know that, Potter,” his chest pressed against Harry’s back, arm coming round, hand cradling his cock, firm and inexorable, “I don’t belong to you, not anymore. You’re going to stand there and wonder and doubt and think about all the other men who might have -”

His hand was speeding up.

“Fuck, Draco -”

“Lube?”

“Yes - just -”

Draco held out his left hand, summoning the lube, no wand, no words, and the smack of the bottle against his palm was threatening and so fucking hot.

“Still gagging for it, aren’t you, Potter?” He slicked his fingers, ran them down the tender skin, held them, still, over his rim, “Tell me, how often did you close your eyes, fucking your perfect wife, and think of me?”

He clenched, relaxed, “Draco -”

“Think of the way you shoved into me, splitting me open with your massive cock, making me beg?”

Harry shivered, whimpered, “Almost every -”

Draco breached him, skilled, and found his prostate with a quick twist, rubbing with no mercy. 

“More.”

“You’re in no position to make demands,” but he still shoved in another finger, scissoring, making Harry cry out.

The glass was so cold against his forehead, Draco’s fingers hot, in him, around him. 

“Your turn to beg, Potter.”

The words burst forth. It was easy. He’d been holding on for so long.

“Please, Draco, I’ll do anything, whatever you want, God, I’ve missed you, fuck -”

Draco slipped in a third finger, pressing down, and circled the base of Harry’s cock and held tight. 

“Ah! Christ, I want you in me, please…” he felt wetness on his cheeks.

“Why do you think you deserve me?”

He closed his eyes against the bitterness of Draco’s voice.

“I don’t.”

Draco was still, coiled with tension like a serpent about to strike.

“Fine,” he heard the rustling of fabric, the sound of a zipper, and Draco entered him with a heartbroken noise, like he was dying.

Harry took his hand off the glass so he could reach down and -

“Oh no you fucking don’t,” Draco slammed his hand back over Harry’s, pressing him back against the window, “You’re going to come like this, untouched, just a hole for me to -”

“Draco -”

He fucked into him hard, breath on his neck, one hand holding him down and the other gripping his hip, pulling him back, leaving marks that Harry already knew he’d wear and cherish until they faded away. The pressure built in him, overwhelming, boiling like bathwater, sweet and cloying like too much rum, smelling and tasting like Draco, Draco by the water, and in the alleys, and dancing in fey dawn light - 

And the way they’d done the shopping together, arguing over what biscuits to buy -

Walking Draco back from work in the afternoon sunshine, when he got promoted and grinned to split his face - 

Meeting all his friends, these new muggle people who adored him -

Holding him after he threw things and cried and raged against the past -

Loving him in the little, quiet ways, in the ways that meant forever, that meant growing old, getting a cat, brewing the coffee, the things he hungered for and ran from and Draco, Draco, this man -

Draco pulled his hip, tilting it with unerring precision, still knowing all the secrets spots, and Harry did take his hand off the window and held him, wrapped his arm back, fingers scraping the back of Draco’s scalp, and he came in such agony all over the window, and Draco cried, brokenly, “Harry.”

Pulsed in him. Gave himself over. Gripped him in a just-fucked embrace. 

Held him.

Pulled out and let him go. 

Zipped up. Spelled his hands clean. Ran fingers, once, through his long hair. 

Harry turned against the glass, breathless, helpless.

Draco appeared unmoved - clothes perfect and the Malfoy mask in place. 

“Thanks for the fuck, Potter.”

“Draco, I -”

“I will owl you if I have any further concerns regarding the children.”

Harry pulled up his pyjamas, wincing, then reached out - 

“Draco, please -”

He stepped away, economical and meticulous in all of his movements. 

“Goodbye, Potter.”

Harry had to reach him, had to stop him this time, and he grabbed his arm -

“Let go, Potter,” irate, immovable, his flesh like a stone, and then the cold veneer splintered and Draco closed his eyes, “Please, Harry.”

Harry dropped his hand.

Draco crossed the room, stepped into the lift. 

Harry watched him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Papi Pacify" by FKA Twigs. 
> 
> "Oh show  
> Make me everything you want  
> Never tell me no  
> (I'll try)  
> Whisper you're the one to fix it too  
> Even if you won't"


	21. Chapter 21

He had to go. That’s what he told himself, anyway.

Draco was due back from work any second; Harry was staring at his packed suitcase. 

The letter from Gin was still crumpled up under their bed, less than a week after he’d gotten it, but Harry didn’t need to read it again to remember -

He’d written a quick note at the beginning of the summer, obviously, just to let them know that his plans had changed, that he was exploring Ireland after all, but that he’d be back. He’d come home, after - 

It was a normal sort of letter, that was the funny thing. Nothing big, or earth shattering, just bits of news - Gin had made the reserves for the Harpies, and George and Angelina had started seeing each other, Angelina bringing him out of the dark hole that Fred had left.

Ron was saving up galleons, working at the joke shop, to buy Hermione a ring, and Hermione knew about it, because of course she did, but she kept it to herself. Because she wanted to let him have the experience, Gin said, of asking for love and getting a resounding and unreserved yes.

Something about that twisted in him like a basilisk in the pipes.

Arthur had asked her, Ginny wrote, to convey Kingsley’s invitation to join the Aurors in an accelerated programme. He could join up at any time, she’d written out - Kingsley was apparently quite eager to have him in the corps. 

A bit of complaining, then, about Molly, who was pestering them all about grandchildren, how soon, her hopes for many. Harry had laughed at that bit, and started thinking -

He was too young, far too young, but - 

And a few lines, nothing too soft or romantic but still sweet like the first ice creams of summer, about how she hoped he was having a good time, and that she missed him. 

Signed, Ginny W, with a messy sketch of a heart.

He had to go.

Harry stared at his case and remembered Ginny, her fierce smile on the pitch, the way he’d kissed her, her smell of strawberries and cream and broom polish - the way she looked like her mum. 

Molly’s big hugs, and Arthur tinkering, forgetting that Harry wasn’t one of their children, not really. Charlie, slapping him on the back, and Bill’s crooked smile, and Ron, working so hard, because he knew down to his socks that he loved Hermione and wanted her to be his. 

Kingsley - “We’re doing the best that we can, Harry,” - and maybe, maybe he should help. He should, because that was what he was good at, wasn’t it?

And it was too early, and he was too young, but he thought - he thought it would be nice, someday, to have kids who looked like him, like his dad. Like his own mum.

He couldn’t have that, here. 

He looked around the flat, taking in all the details - the patch of damp plaster in the corner that never seemed to dry, the pokey little bathroom with the cracked mirror, the kitchenette stocked with his favorite tea. The record player, the stack of LPs. The blue cotton sheets, serviceable, almost soft enough. The little tin of pomade, down to the last few drops. 

The sound of feathers rustling, the lingering smell of hash. 

It wasn’t anything like the life he’d imagined for himself. And so what, if he really wanted - if he wanted to have -

He thought back to a night in early July, when they’d danced straight through to sunrise, talking utter nonsense, laughing, sitting on the front stoop and chain smoking. It had been a beautiful night, and he’d felt purged, like every drop of sweat was an asperges, the salt-slick wiping away his sins. They’d talked about a lot of things, and without really thinking about it, Harry slurred out, 

“Do you wanna have kids, d’you think?”

Draco laughed.

“Fuck no,” he leaned back against the stoop, looking up at the fading darkness, “What would I have to pass on? No.”

He stubbed out his cigarette, waited five seconds, lit another.

“Let the line die with me. Here lies Draco Lucius Malfoy,” he gestured broadly, “Good fucking riddance.” 

It had made sense, at the time. Maybe - maybe they were both too broken. 

He thought of Draco, his tousled hair, his smooth skin, his nasty looks, the way he smelled - the fine trembling in him, his legs and hands, and the way he kissed. The way he loved him, maybe, but it wasn’t - it wouldn’t be -

Was it really enough? Enough to make a life out of?

His whole body was screaming at him, saying yes, yes -

But that was just his body, just a mechanical thing, and it didn’t necessarily mean -

And deep in him was an ugly thing, a petrified thing, a mewling - he had never intended to fall in love with a man. He couldn’t be - couldn’t tell his friends that he was -

Draco opened the door.

He was energetic, cheerful - now that Colin had him doing more work around the club, bookkeeping and advertising and any odds and ends he was up for, he’d started coming home with a little more excitement. He liked his work, and he was good at it, and he was getting recognized, which Harry had realised, at some point, was new for him.

He tossed his keys down, pulled off his shirt, exposing the long, spidery scars and his fading Dark Mark. 

“Hi, love,” he brushed a kiss on Harry’s cheek, which burned like a brand, “How was your -”

He froze. Stared.

“Are you going somewhere?”

His voice was chilly, but his chest and face turned a splotchy pink.

Harry wished he had already shrunken his case.

“I -”

A pause.

“Draco, I’m - I’m going home.”

“Are you?” His words as violent as the crack of a bullwhip, and then fragile, “Will you be coming back?”

He felt sweat gather, prickling all over his body. He couldn’t bring himself to answer; he mumbled, staring at the floor. 

“I was thinking - I wanted to -”

“You wanted to what?”

And that was the goddamned question wasn’t it, and there wasn’t really a good answer, and he started to feel angry.

Angry was good. He understood anger; anger at Malfoy was an old friend.

His voice came out ugly, “This wasn’t supposed to be forever, you know.”

“Oh really?” he laughed, mean, “That’s funny, considering that you’ve told me that you -”

“Yeah, well,” Harry cut him off, “I’ve got things - Kingsley wants me for Auror training.”

“Auror training.”

“And I - Draco, this was just supposed to be - I was always meant to go home.”

Draco sat on their one chair, his whole body still but tense. Anticipatory.

“Why now?” 

“What?”

“Why now, Harry?” 

He pulled out his pack and lit a cigarette. Didn’t offer one.

“Look, it doesn’t matter -”

“It matters,” he exhaled, smoke spiraling, “To me.”

Harry sat back onto the bed, looked at his hands.

“I just - I got an owl, and it made me - I feel a bit homesick, and -”

“Who sent the owl?”

He knew, somehow. But he wanted Harry to say it, wanted him to confess.

They’d never talked about her. 

“Ginny,” he shouted, then more quietly but still fucking angry, “It was from Ginny, alright?”

Draco’s voice, very still, as sharp and deadly as a scalpal - “Can’t bear to be queer, can you?”

The air in the flat was thick with smoke and sweat and buried rage. Draco stood, went to the window, opened it.

“You know what, Potter? I always thought that between the two of us, I was the coward. But guess I was wrong.”

“Excuse me -” Harry nearly spat.

“This ridiculous charade… these months, every fuck, every pitiful,” he slammed a fist against the wall, “You wanted me to feel something for you, compassion and gratitude and -”

“Draco -”

“After all that, I… You made me…”

He laughed like choking.

“After all that you’re going home. To Ginevra. Who is, I think you may remember, a woman.”

Harry flushed, scalding and sick.

“This summer… I’ve figured you out, Potter. Why you’ve always been like this, so fucking selfish,” he leaned his head against the peeling paint of the window, “And I don’t think that it was the war that fucked you up at all. I think you got off on it - I think you enjoyed telling yourself that you were brave. That you were the hero of the story,” he laughed with the jarring friction of broken glass.

“It was the only way you could imagine yourself being worth loving.”

Draco took a drag from his cigarette. Harry wanted to hit him, and wanted to crowd up behind him, press against his naked back, say no, and fuck you, and please.

Draco whirled, and his voice was so familiar - it was the voice he’d used to torment, to bully.

“What really fucked you up was your muggle family. They taught you how to be afraid, all the time. How to hate yourself. And that hate is eating you up. You need to be the hero, need people to worship you, so that -”

He dropped the cigarette and ground it into ash on the scarred carpet. And then he met Harry’s eyes - and his grey irises, dark as slate, were colder than they had ever been.

“But you’re not a hero, Potter, and I’m not going to be the victim of your mastubatory manipulations, not anymore. You can fuck right off for all I care.”

He took a step towards Harry, bristling, and the flat felt like that moment before a lightning strike, ozone and electricity.

His face was vicious. Fuck, this hurt.

“Go, be an Auror, whatever. Marry Ginevra, stick your prick in her, fake being... have her pop out a brood of red-headed brats. Just know that this time, the only person who’s forcing you into the cupboard is you. And that you’re locking everyone else in that cupboard with you.”

He crossed his arms over his scarred chest, holding himself back. Hiding his scars, his mark. Harry clenched his fists, teeth nearly cracking as he ground them with the pressure of his tight jaw. 

“It’s almost funny, your selfishness. Your willingness to curse others - including Ginevra, by the way - with misery. All because poor little Potter never got a proper hug.”

Harry was hot, through every cell, and his nails were cutting into his palms, and the anger let him pretend that his heart wasn’t breaking.

Like this wasn’t his fault.

“You have a lot of nerve to talk about family. You’re going to stand here and talk shit, like you had the perfect childhood? Pretend that your father isn’t a boot-licking monster?”

He wanted to hurt Draco right back, slicing him open. Draco just laughed.

“That’s how I know, Potter. I never got a proper hug, either,” he met Harry’s eyes, and Harry could tell that it was probably the last time he’d see him so naked, so open. 

So breakable.

“But I was willing to try. With you. I thought -”

“What?” His voice cracked, almost desperate.

“You said you loved me, you son of a bitch, and I fucking believed you,” he was all-white now, ghostly, “And I had never -” he shook his head, yelled, “Fuck! You’re just like everybody else. A user. 

“So go on, use Ginevra up until she hates you, just like your fucking muggle relatives did. Just don’t ever, ever come crawling back to me to make you feel better about your miserable life.”

Draco turned, staring back out into the street. And then without deigning to look over his shoulder, he spoke, quietly, the last words that Harry would get from him for seventeen years.

“I’m not your whore anymore. Get the fuck out of my flat, Potter.”

Harry stood, picked up his case, crossed to the door, and closed his eyes in shame when he heard a broken voice behind him.

“You’ve taken everything I had to give.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Love Ridden" by Fiona Apple. 
> 
> "My hand won't hold you down, no more  
> The path is  
> Clear to follow through  
> I stood too long in the way of the door  
> And now, I'm giving up on  
> You"


	22. Chapter 22

“Fuck!”

That was a Ming vase he’d just shattered against the wood-paneled wall of his study. All the Reparos in the world wouldn’t put it back together properly. 

Once he’d walked out of Harry’s building, he’d found the nearest corner shop and bought a pack of Marlboro lights. Then he’d gone into the off-license and bought a bottle of whiskey, and then he’d come home, and he’d started throwing things.

He was too old for this. 

It felt fantastic. 

He wanted to die.

“Draco - what -” Mother entered the study, with enough sense to have her wand in hand.

He lit up a cigarette, took a shot straight from the bottle. 

“I’m not in the mood for company, Mother.”

“Given the state of this room,” she walked further in, lifting her robes to avoid shards of pottery, “I think you need it, even if you don’t want it.”

“Mum,” he slumped, covered his eyes, tried not to cry, “I just need to be angry, alright?”

“Draco, what -”

“Just get out.”

She gave him a long, considering look, and then left. Even though he’d sent her away, he felt that old pain - no one ever fucking stayed. 

He picked up a glass paperweight, a dragon shifting and coiling in the charmed crystal. It seemed fitting - he drew it back and hurled it at the wall, leaving a dent in the paneling.

If only he could be destroyed so easily. But he just kept on fucking living.

It was cold in the manor, too cold, and he remembered what it was like, back then, when the snake was in every corner, gnawed and regurgitated human bones stacked in the cellar, his father pitiful and cowed, hair turned to straw. The constant, unending fear permeating the air like a foul perfume. 

Maybe he’d never left there. Maybe he carried that putrid decay in him. Maybe it came from him, rot arising from his very flesh. 

“Fuck, fucking Potter,” he picked up something else - a sterling silver candlestick - and threw it, relishing in the clang, “Why did I - how could he - fuck!”

He took a drag from his cigarette, whirled drunkenly, glared with swollen eyes at his father’s curtained portrait.

“You were right after all, Father. So fucking weak.”

The air started to vibrate, objects levitating without him even casting. It had been like this, the first time, with Harry gone - his magic boiled over, violent and destructive. A noiseless wind blew everything - art, objets, all his carefully maintained financial files - into a whirling tornado of pain made manifest. 

He was raving.

“How did you know? How could you tell that your precious, pathetic, only heir would be,” he gestured wildly at himself, “Like this? Useless, idiotic - never good enough - a fucking catamite to Harry fucking Potter -”

“Draco!” a strident, terrified voice from behind him. He turned, saw Pansy’s face, and everything froze in the air until he fell, and it all crashed to the ground with him. 

“Pans…”

He was suddenly, blissfully numb.

He folded in on himself, knees propped up, head dropped, the bottle dangling from his hand, “What are you doing here?”

She tip-toed her way into the room on scandalously high heels and stared down at him, stern but not cruel.

“Your mother firecalled.”

He laughed, “Of course. Didn’t want to deal with me herself.”

“Hmm.”

She sat down on the ground next to him, arranging her tight skirt, taking off her tailored suitcoat. 

“You going to share, or what?” 

He handed over the bottle of whiskey.

“Ugh,” she swallowed, disgusted, “I don’t know how you drink this muggle stuff.”

“I like it.”

“Yes, well,” she leaned her shoulder against his, “You always did have terrible taste.”

He snorted, “Merlin knows that’s true.”

She studied the chaos in the room, all the fractured heirlooms now worthless.

“I’m assuming this is a Potter-shaped breakdown.”

“Fuck, Pans…”

“I would be more than delighted to kill him for you,” she did not sound like she was joking, “And I represent some great properties, you know - places to hide the body.”

He laughed soundlessly, shaking.

“God, I love you, Pans. Tell me again why I didn’t marry you?”

She reached for his pack of cigarettes, tapped one out and lit it with a snap of her fingers, her own favorite wandless spell.

“Probably because I am such an unremitting cunt.”

“Have a cunt, more like.”

“That too.” 

He held out his right hand, “Light another, will you?”

They smoked for a while, silent.

“I fucked him.”

She looked around at the mess again.

“You shock me.”

Stretching her long legs in front of her - and flashing the lacy tops of her stockings, the minx - she sighed.

“You should know, I’m saying this entirely against my better judgment.”

Frowning at her, he watched her face. She looked conflicted and not a little pissed off.

“I think you didn’t notice, when we were looking at the flat, the way Potter looked at you.”

A pain in his chest. She ground out her cigarette on the carpet.

“Nice, Pans.”

“Yes, you so obviously care about the rug,” she lifted an eyebrow, gesturing to the destruction around them.

He snorted, “Alright. So…”

A growl at the back of her throat, “Harry Potter. He is the stupidest person I have ever met. He is an utter disgrace to any sense of style, gentility, or culture. Sometimes I think I hate him more than I hated my bloody useless Death Eater father.”

“Tell us how you really feel.”

She thwapped his knee with the back of her hand, her diamond ring digging into him.

“And he is very clearly, in his idiotic, artless, Gryffindor way, madly in love with you.”

“I don’t think -”

“Well, that’s obvious.”

“You always make me feel so much better about myself.”

“Yes, well,” she took a big gulp of the whiskey then stuck her tongue out and coughed, “Nasty. Look. As much as I don’t want a permanent Potter accessory in our glorious Slytherin family,” he laughed, “When he looks at you… It’s all on his face, alright? Everything. So bloody uncouth.”

“Pans…”

“He loves you. He watches you like he’s never seen anything more -” she shrugged, uncomfortable, “Anything more beautiful. Precious. And you are, Draco,” he looked at his lap, avoiding her kindness, “Don’t forget that, please.

“Draco, he left his wife. And if he’s finally admitted - not before time, the halfwit - that he wants to make his life with you in it, and you…” 

She trailed off, put a hand over his.

“Do you love him?”

“God,” he put his legs down, interlaced his fingers with hers, closed his eyes, “I wish I didn’t.”

“Mmhmm,” then he heard a smirk in her voice, “He a good fuck?”

“Pansy!” she rolled her eyes at him, “Ugh, alright,” he mumbled under his breath, “The fucking best. Christ, his cock -”

“Let’s stop there, shall we?” She shivered in disgust, “I am already struggling to keep this appalling whiskey down.

“But Draco, darling - maybe you can - oh, I don’t believe I’m saying this - but maybe you can be happy, with him. Really, truly happy.”

His voice was small, “I’m scared, Pans.”

“I know.”

“What if -”

“Fuck the what if. Just do the thing, alright, because you deserve -”

A knock at the door. He looked up, a little fuzzy, hot tears in his eyes, and -

“Potter.”

Harry stood in the doorway, absolutely awkward and out of place, but he - he didn’t notice the mess, any of it, and didn’t even glance at Pansy or her French lace stockings with frilly suspenders - he was just staring at Draco with such naked intensity that - fuck, maybe she was right.

He felt Pans tense next to him. She glared at Potter, then kissed Draco on the head as she picked up her jacket, stood, and muttered, “Do you want me to stay?”

He shook his head, reluctant but certain.

“Alright,” and in a whisper, “Just try, would you?”

She crossed to Potter, the heel-clacking noise angry and brutal.

“You!” she barked and jabbed at his chest, “Testicles!”

“Understood.”

As she left - muttering with artistic profanity all the things she wanted to do with Potter’s intimate parts - Harry kept looking at him, and looking, and Draco - he was a mess, the burning butt of a cigarette in hand, and whiskey in his bloodstream, and he loved him, painfully, without doubt, and it was the absolute fucking worst, and -

“What are you doing here, Potter?”

“I’m here,” and he dropped to his knees like a dramatic madman, the remains of the Ming vase cutting into his skin, “To beg.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "when the party's over" by Billie Eilish
> 
> "But nothin' is better sometimes  
> Once we've both said our goodbyes  
> Let's just let it go  
> Let me let you go"


	23. Chapter 23

Harry was gone. An irrefutable fact. A truth. 

Who cares, he thought, and who the hell needed him in the first place?

Draco stalked through the club, right to the middle of the dance floor, and wedged himself between two hard bodies, desperate for the cleansing fire of someone else’s touch. His muscles were sore from crying and trying not to cry, and he felt, for the first time since he’d gotten to Cork, entirely unclean.

He smelled something rotting. The scars on his chest almost burned.

“Hi, gorgeous,” a voice from behind him. He reached his arm back and wound his fingers through coarse hair. He felt solid, warm, good to lean on, but his scent wasn’t quite right.

And the bloke in front of him was attractive enough, but he couldn’t help compare - his hair was too tidy, his leer too obvious, and whatever he was grinding up against Draco’s leg was… unsatisfactory.

Please, please, Draco. Just forget about him. Forget. 

He felt a stiffness against his arse - a more respectable size, there, than whatever was in the other man’s trousers - and he arched back, turning his head and shout-whispering.

“You wanna get out of here?”

“Fuck yes.”

He turned and dragged his eyes over his form. Well-built, dark hair, that blue-cream Irish skin. 

And glasses.

No, no, don’t do this, you stupid fuck, it’ll only -

It would have to be good enough. 

“Name’s Thom,” he grinned. He was rather handsome, in his own way. Draco could not care less.

“Hey, Thom,” Draco smiled without warmth, “Mine?”

“Sure,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag, “You want?”

Adderall, the poor college student’s cocaine. 

Oh, well, it would keep him awake through his shift in the morning.

They did lines in the toilets - Thom rubbed up against him, “I could have you right now, God, you’re beautiful.”

Draco caught his reflection in the mirror, with the blurred images of dark hair and glasses behind him, and he thought, fuck, I had Harry Potter, here against the sinks, and he had me on my knees for him, and he went home to Ginevra and respectability and he was so far away - away from -

He couldn’t stay in here.

“Come on,” he pushed Thom off, “I want you to fuck me in a proper bed.”

The walk to Draco’s flat went quickly - the addy coursing through his system like lightning. 

Thom was - not rough, exactly, but careless. Sloppy. He tried to be sweet, maybe, but it came out as clumsy and childish. He’d pinned Draco to the door of his flat, and Draco let him - he wanted to give in, to yield up the parts of him that had awakened when he’d lived with and loved Harry fucking Potter. That died when he left. 

“Leave them,” he said, commanding, when Thom tried to remove his glasses.

“Got a kink?” Thom smiled and licked a line straight up the underside of Draco’s cock.

“Something like that.”

If he let his vision relax - if he let himself see details like abstract snatches of bad dreams, he could almost pretend that the dark hair under his fingers was blacker, messier, softer. He pulled on Thom’s scalp when he got too close.

“Come on, wanna come when you’re in me.”

Thom looked all too delighted, “No objections from me.”

It all went too fast and not fast enough. Thom used a lot of lube, and he slipped in and out of Draco’s body, and he kept trying to cradle Draco’s face in some misplaced nod to tenderness. Draco shoved his hand in the direction of his cock, and he gripped it softly.

“Harder, fuck.”

With the movement over him, in him, and the hollow physical pleasure, and the smell of Thom’s cheap cologne, Draco let his mind wander. Float. He let himself be lost in this, another man’s body, the mechanics of fucking, a numbness.

He came. It was - acceptable. He kicked Thom out with a perfunctory “thanks.” He forgot his name five minutes later. 

He stayed up all night, playing records, lying in bed, sleepless. Dirty.

The next day, he enrolled in business classes at the university. 

He worked harder than he ever had at Hogwarts, and he liked it, back in the grind, working at the club all day, classes in the evenings, studying, drinking coffee, weaning himself off the cigarettes, and if his magic exploded every once and a while and he cried and raged it was just - just a part of the experience. College stress, and running the books for Colin, and forgetting to eat, now that Harry wasn’t there to -

He started writing to Pansy again, and Blaise, and Greg. Pans was always complaining about Blaise; Blaise was always raving about Pans. It came as no surprise, whatsoever, to get a gushing - and far too detailed - review of Blaise’s performance in bed. And when Greg decided to get the hell out of England, where people spat on him in the street, Draco gave him some advice on how to manage his money, and it was like - like the old days, but so much better. 

Greg met a French-speaking muggle woman in his cookery classes. He wrote to tell Draco, stunned, that he thought he loved her. 

And that was good. More than good.

Draco was maybe a little lonely, but he didn’t bring people home, anymore. 

Pans sent him the Prophet, sometimes, for the financial section. He started thinking about Gringotts, the way it was antiquated and mismanaged, and what he would do if he had the family money, a little more leverage. The muggle world, with its credit cards and ATMs and all that technology, was so much more efficient. 

He had no room, anymore, for hate. At least not for muggles, these wonderful, short-lived people he had come to love with all of his heart. 

He saw an engagement announcement in the paper. A picture, green eyes, a yellow dress. 

He smoked his last pack of cigarettes, ashing right over the grinning faces of people he didn’t, it turned out, know very well at all. 

And then, that next July, Father died. 

He was relieved. He grieved against his will. He was, almost immediately, very wealthy indeed. 

So he came home. Back to the manor, which he had renovated and repaired. Back to bitching with Pansy over tea, and glasses of scotch with Blaise, and Greg owling him chocolates. Investing in his friends, his Slytherin family whom everyone still hated. Designing and perfecting the charms for magi-muggle charge cards at Gringotts. Making more money. Grinding, even now.

He made something of himself, not as a Malfoy, but as him - Draco. He caught, every once in a while, a strange, solemn look on Mother’s face, and he figured he had better start planning for an heir of his own. 

Astoria was a lovely woman, with a truly stunning laugh like sex on concrete, and she and mother spent hours together, very happily, and it wasn’t her fault, not really, that he couldn’t -

And Scorpius was pink and blonde and chubby and so fucking cheerful and oh, how he loved him -

And Harry was a father, three times over, when Draco couldn’t bear to try again, another fault, another failure -

And he let Scorpius play with the hunting crups and nurse the runt of the litter by hand -

Greg had a little girl with toasted brown skin, Gabrielle, the first half-blood in his family, and Greg was so delighted, his doughy face beautiful as he held her in his arms -

And little Hya Zabini dug in the gardens with Scorpius, getting dirty and laughing and trailing mud all through the manor -

And Astoria, so much stronger than he was, sat him down and said, firmly, lovingly, “It’s time.”

And on many of those days, he didn’t think about Harry, really.

It was a lie, but a necessary one.

He didn’t know that on all of those days, Harry was thinking about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac. 
> 
> "Tell me why  
> Everything turned around  
> Packing up  
> Shacking up is all you want to do  
> If I could  
> Baby, I'd give you my world  
> Open up  
> Everything's waiting for you  
> You can go your own way  
> Go your own way  
> You can call it  
> Another lonely day  
> You can go your own way  
> Go your own way"


	24. Chapter 24

Harry Potter had always wanted Draco Malfoy.

And, as much as he hid from it, raged against it silently, locked it up in a dark cupboard with the spiders and the broken toy figures and mouldy crumbs - he knew exactly when wanting him shamed and bloody and broken revealed itself as wanting to hold him and never let go.

Because he had been shamed, bloody, broken, sliced to ribbons by Harry’s wand, and all he’d thought was no, no, please -

I can’t live without him. 

He left him in that bathroom - ran away, panicked, terrified of his own capacity for violence and the sudden knowledge, the true root of him, the explanation, the reason he kept going, day after day, Draco, hated, beloved, beautiful as he was baptized by his own blood. It was a hideous kind of love, nothing warm or soft about it - it wasn’t like the love he had for Ginny, who was sweet and kind and a little acerbic and a lot stubborn, a girl who loved him back, who made him feel good about himself, and who felt like family already. 

Harry felt a shard of something digging into his knee, probably cutting him. He stayed still, hardly breathing.

He couldn’t help but remember that boy in the bathroom. Draco sat, hunched over himself with his elbows on his knees, those long legs folded up, and he held the still-burning butt of a cigarette. A bottle of Bushmills sat next to him, not quite half gone. And he looked the same, to him - all the years were meaningless, the laugh lines, the hair lightened by age - he was his Draco, the person he knew, down in his soul, he needed more than he needed air. 

The person he’d injured, terribly. More than once.

The person he would love until he closed his eyes, one last time, and woke in a white-washed Kings Cross and finally boarded the train that had been waiting for him since he was 17 years old.

“You what?” 

Draco’s voice was like gravel. He stubbed out the cigarette. Cleared his throat.

“Beg. I’m here to -”

“Fuck off.”

“No.”

Draco stared, running his eyes from the top of his head to his knees.

“You’re bleeding, Potter.”

Harry looked down. The blue and white china had indeed cut him, and he was bleeding - more than a little. 

“That would explain the pain, then.” 

He stayed kneeling.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Draco took a swallow of whiskey, “Get up.”

His knees creaked as he stood - he may have felt like a teenager, inside, but his body was one hundred percent 37 years old, and it hated him. 

“Come here,” Draco jerked his head. 

He walked over, dripping, and when he stood next to Draco, Draco ran his hand over the cut, muttered something in Latin, and he was healed.

“Your wandless magic is really impressive.”

“Yes, well,” he wiped blood on his shirt and felt around for his pack, “I’m a Malfoy. We do everything well.”

“Oh, sure.”

“And my wand never felt the same, after,” he waved his hand around, “Whatever.”

Draco squinted up at him, his refined features going all pointy, like they had been when he was a little boy.

“So?”

Harry frowned.

“Beg!” he lit another cigarette - God, how could he still smoke like this - and offered one to Harry, “Sweet Merlin’s knickers, what the fuck.”

Harry sat down next to him - moving, just in time, a razor-sharp piece of splintered glass stuck in the carpet (which he thought that maybe Pansy’d left there, just for him) - and fiddled with the cigarette. He opened his mouth, and nothing came out. He coughed, tried again.

Draco snorted, “Why did I ever bother with you?”

“I’m sorry, I... Oh, what the hell,” he lit the cigarette, breathed in, got instantly buzzed, “I’d forgotten how disgusting and bloody wonderful these things are. Let’s not tell our children about this, alright?”

Draco got very still.

“Yes. You always preferred to keep me your dirty little secret.”

A dizzy flash of shame, remorse, and he crushed the cigarette, “That’s not what I meant, Draco.”

“No?” he started laughing, acidic, eating away at the unnaturally stagnant air of the study.

Harry sat, mute.

“You can’t do it, can you? Telling me you’re here to beg - to beg me to -” his voice broke off, thick, “And you can’t. Just another fucking lie.” He threw his cigarette across the room.

It was Harry’s turn to curl up on himself, forearms on knees. He felt the space between them, the space where Draco wasn’t touching him, like an endless chasm.

“I realized, in the end,” his voice was relaxed, like they were discussing the weather, “That you didn’t mean it.”

“What -”

“We were young, I know that now, though it didn’t feel like it at the time. Maybe - maybe you thought that telling me that you - that you - ugh.”

He picked up the bottle, drank for three precise seconds, and offered it to Harry, who shook his head. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, marked with Harry’s blood.

“Maybe you lied like that to make me feel better, I don’t know, or because you felt sorry for me. But,” his voice was so small, “It was a really fucking shitty thing to do.” 

“I didn’t lie.”

Draco sneered.

“Of course you did. You left.”

“I was wrong,” Harry let his legs widen, his knee just a centimetre closer, and felt Draco radiating heat, anger, and deep hurt. Hurt that he had caused. 

“I was so wrong, to leave you.”

He looked at the carpet, glass and burn marks, and he thought about how he had been so scared, back in the coffee shop, to open his mouth. How he hadn’t, then. He remembered watching Draco’s back as he walked away, and the sound of his strangled voice, that last day in the flat. He breathed in -

“And I was stupid to believe you could have ever loved me. After all - look at me,” Draco rolled up his sleeve, baring the mark, newer scars from - oh, God, Draco, when did you - where he had tried to cut it out, “Look at this,” he opened his hands, indicating the damage to his study.

“Harry Potter,” he shut his eyes, “Could never love me.”

Harry’s heart twisted in him.

He finally spoke. 

“Oh you are thick.”

That was… not how he intended to start. Draco’s mouth gaped open.

“Thanks.”

Harry relaxed his legs further, pressing up against Draco - and Draco’s breath caught, but he didn’t pull away.

“Have you really been thinking that I didn’t love you, you monumental arse?”

Draco’s profile looked uncertain - angry, and flushing pink, and maybe really rather offended.

“You’re doing a brilliant job of convincing me at the moment.”

“Draco, I was a coward, and I did run away, and it -” just touching him like this, just being close, was so beautiful, like everything he’d ever wanted and everything he’d ever lost. 

“I was so scared. I was stupid, and I… And then I had what I’d thought would be the perfect life,” he took Draco’s left hand, held it, and Merlin, his skin was still so soft, “The life that I imagined since I was a kid. That I thought I was supposed to have.

“And I have three amazing children - and you have Scorpius,” Draco nodded, with a fleeting smile, “So I can’t regret that, even though -”

“What, Potter?” 

He almost sounded… hopeful. But still so fragile.

“Even though, in every other way, I wish I had stayed. Because Draco, God, I love you.”

Wetness gathered in his eyes, his nose stuffed up, and maybe this is what he’d been scared of, in the coffee shop, and in the flat, and each day that he’d made himself survive, numb, without Draco. 

He’d never learned, in the cupboard, what it meant to love someone. What it meant to hold your heart out, beating and bloody, when no one had ever loved you back. 

The words seemed to settle into him, a solid mass of self-hatred and longing and fear. But he had to try - he kept talking.

“I loved you from the first time I saw you at that nightclub. I loved you suddenly, and I loved you bit by bit.

“I loved you when you made that paper crane, you remember, that stupid bird, and sent it flying to me in third year. I loved you when I was running and hunting and I saw you in my horrible visions, torturing other death eaters, with fear and horror on your face.

“I loved you when you ate too many sweets in the great hall when no one else was looking. I loved you when you took off your shirt and showed me your scars, the scars I made, and I loved you when I made them.

“I loved you when our lives were horrible and bitter and violent, and I loved you when they were beautiful and messy and wild. And God, I’m so proud of you for the life you’ve made now. 

“You think I couldn’t love you?” Harry’s breath shook out, nose running, and he smiled a watery smile, “How could I possibly not? Draco - I can’t bear to live without you, not for one more day, not for one more second, because you are so beautiful, so damned brave, so unexpectedly kind… to me, you are perfect. You’re everything I was too stupid to know I needed.

“Draco fucking Malfoy,” he paused - Draco had almost laughed, “I have loved you every single day of my life. I will go on loving you until death takes me a second time. 

“And I will love you if you love me back or if you walk away.”

He was scraped clean, hollowed out, and maybe he hadn’t breathed, enough, during all that, because he felt dizzy and sick. But while he was making an utter embarrassing arse of himself, Draco had turned, wound his fingers through Harry’s hair, met his wet eyes with grey irises like a storm, clearing.

“Harry,” his breath shook, “I can’t live through you leaving again. I can’t do it.”

“I won’t. Ever.”

“We have children.”

Harry waved a hand, careless, “They’ll sort themselves out.”

Draco laughed, and he looked so -

“Your ex-wife is a polyamorous nymphomaniac.”

“I’m a monogamous nymphomaniac. For you.”

He snorted, and ran his hand down Harry’s neck, and -

“Pansy hates you.”

“Yes. But I - don’t repeat this - I think I love her, for how much she loves you.”

And he was leaning closer, face so tender and warm and scared -

“You owe me. A lot.”

“I’ll pay you back. Whatever - however long - d’you want a holiday? Expensive gifts? Sexual slavery? The entire wardrobe? Or I can get you that cat -”

“Harry,” he was smiling and smiling.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

When he kissed him, they clicked right into place - Draco’s smirking lips tilting, covering his, and it was like dancing, and chasing the snitch, and laughing in lamplight, and drinking hot cinnamon liqueur; it was bath oil and champagne; it was being so terribly young, and growing so beautifully old.

Harry Potter had always wanted Draco Malfoy.

This time he intended to keep him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "I Would Be Your Slave" by David Bowie.
> 
> "Give me peace of mind at last  
> Show me all you are  
> Open up your heart to me  
> And I would be your slave"


	25. Chapter 25

It turned out that a holiday was the first thing - doubtless one amongst a long list of reparations that Harry would happily pay as long as he was asked - that Draco wanted. 

Harry walked around in a daze, after that kiss, and Draco rolled his eyes at him, terribly pleased and trying to hide it, and he instructed Harry, “Get it together, Potter, and book us a hotel somewhere.”

They got the bridal suite at the Metropole hotel. 

Cork was different, in some ways, and so similar in others. College kids still crowded into every pub, huddling on the pavement in the December chill, smoking and laughing and making spectacles of themselves, and when they drove past them in the back of a black cab, Draco looked out and grimaced, “Were we ever that young?” 

“We’re still young. Young enough.”

Draco smiled at him, a secret smile, “I suppose,” and he kissed him.

In the hotel room, Draco fell back onto the plush mattress, feet still on the floor, closing his eyes and stretching. Harry stood between his legs, pulled off his jumper.

“D’you wanna go dancing?”

Draco gave him a withering look.

And then his eyes widened as he took in Harry’s fitted shirt, trousers with the top button already undone.

“I think not.”

Harry fell on top of him, breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank Merlin.”

They undressed each other, slow and careful like they both might break, and maybe Harry’d gotten a little softer (but just a little) and he could practically count the ribs on Draco’s torso (he still forgot to eat, sometimes, and Harry would have to fix that) but fuck, it was still them. Still so rough and tender and perfect, the way they fit, and they slipped into the tub, Draco resting in Harry’s arms, and it was overwhelming, and Harry got the giggles.

“What are you laughing about, Potter?”

Harry wrapped his arm around, taking up Draco’s cock, moving with just the right amount of pressure.

“Just remembering that last time in the bath, when you -”

“Don’t say it,” and, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not.”

“But - oh, fuck - you can keep doing that, if you like.”

“Still turned on by baths, hmm?”

“Well…” a broken moan, “It might have something to do with you. Maybe.”

Harry kissed his ear, “Good.”

The towels were fluffier, somehow, and the dark of the night was more profound, and they were slick with oil, and Harry laid Draco out on the duvet, face against the pillows, drew his hips up and back -

“Oh, God,” Harry licked, gentle, around Draco’s entrance, and pressed his tongue in, “Fuck, Harry.”

He had more patience, now, and took lots of time, until Draco was drenched, his cock full, heavy between his legs, brushing against the bed. And he was gorgeous, and Harry loved him so much, and how had he ever thought he could live without this, and he breathed so hot against his tender skin, and in typical Harry style blurted out -

“Marry me.”

And then kept eating at Draco’s arse.

“Ahh, Merlin - what the fuck, Harry -” Draco reached round and held Harry’s hair, “Are you absolutely mad?”

“Totally,” Harry slid a finger in, “Completely,” he flicked against Draco’s prostate, “Without a doubt. Flip over.”

Draco did, and stared up at Harry, eyes hazy and mouth sharp, “And were you asking me, or my arsehole?”

“Don’t know really,” he slipped in two fingers, thrusting back and forth, “Both, probably. God, you’re beautiful.”

“Harry…”

“You. I’m asking you.”

“Harry,” Draco reached down, stilled his hands, “I can’t. Not yet. Not after -” his face was pinched but shaded with pleasure, and insecure.

“Alright,” his voice low, quiet, and he leaned over, nudging Draco’s knees up, kissing him soft and sweet.

Draco smiled against his mouth.

“Are you ever going to get to the fucking?”

“So pushy.”

“Yeah, well, I have been waiting for -”

And Harry pressed in.

Once he’d bottomed out - and God, it had been far too long, it was fucking unbelievable - they both stilled, conjoined, and it felt like the years unspooled out from within them, the memories thick, and it was - it was -

“Why do you make me feel this way?” 

Harry gripped onto Draco’s sides. They were in the half-light of the alley beside their club, and music was playing, and they were crowded on every side by other young people living other secret lives. Harry’s back was to the wall, their come still wet and warm in their jeans after rubbing against each other and laughing and crying out, muffled, into the other’s neck. 

“Because it’s us, Harry. This is -” his silvery eyes were guarded but endless like the moon, “It’s just - us.

“This is who we are.”

“Move,” Draco whispered, harsh.

He did. 

They stayed up all night, snatches of sleep caught here and there, and they greeted the dawn together like it was the first time. 

Like it was the first morning of the rest of their lives.

And it was. 

…..

Miles away, up in Brú na Bóinne, a man both young and old fished in the river - a basket of glimmering trout next to him, Caer waiting at home, pressing golden and silver apples into cider, as she had done for thousands of years.

Aengus tipped his head and smiled.

Har had found him, after all. 

The wander had done him good.

….. 

When they got back from their holiday, their lives linked up, blended almost seamlessly, as if it had always been that way - them, their families, their whole world. Everyone just called them “Harry ‘n’ Draco,” two individuals made into a single unit, never one without the other. 

Draco did move into the flat that Pansy’d really picked for him, and yes, he did need all that room in the wardrobe, thank you very much, Potter. He whispered sweet nothings to the espresso machine (and occasionally to Harry, though there was usually profanity involved. And nudity.)

James plastered his room with posters of musicians and athletes, muggle and magical, and Harry and Draco switched on the built-in silencing charms after the first night of too-loud rapping at arse o’clock on a Tuesday. 

Living in a high-end flat was… not bad. 

“I told you,” Draco nudged Harry, after Jamie’s music had been muted, “Living in luxury is the only way to live.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he kissed him, rolling them over, crawling down his body and fully taking advantage of the silencing charms, “You’re always right.”

Draco moaned, clutching at Harry’s hair, “Absolutely - ah, fuck - glad you agree.”

Scorpius and Albus were thrilled to be roommates, naturally, and they were two peas in a pod - getting into trouble every once in a while, but also earning high marks and being, in general, great kids. It all went very well until that summer before their seventh year, when Harry’d walked into their room, and -

“Aughh, my eyes!”

“Dad!”

“Harry!”

“Ugh!”

“We weren’t -” from Scorpius, and, “Scorp, we obviously were, so bugger off, Dad,” from Al.

“Well, I guess we should have seen that coming,” Draco tried not to laugh as Harry, bright red, flopped onto their pillow-top mattress and groaned into his hands.

Albus moved into Jamie’s old room. 

In theory. 

Everybody loved the silencing charms that summer. 

Lily, their third (and rather more cunning) Slytherin, decorated her room in bright green, mirrors everywhere and silvery curtains around her bed, and got on fabulously with Draco - who had way too much fun spoiling her rotten - and was often planning world domination.

She was still Harry’s little girl.

Narcissa popped over with some (uncomfortable) regularity for a glass of whiskey or a pot of tea and Harry had always been anxious until she grabbed him by the face and whispered, Draco out of the room, “You finally got it right. Thank you for loving him back.”

“Always.”

Ron, when he first came over, walked straight up to Draco, face hard. “Come here, you bastard,” he said roughly, and then he grabbed him in an embrace and slapped the hell out of his back. Draco, gobsmacked, endured the hug. “You’re not going to hit me again, are you?” he asked Hermione, not really kidding - and then he teared up when Hermione kissed his cheek and said, simply, “Welcome home, Draco.”

Pansy visited often. She still hated Harry. But she’d go all soft and tender at the pure, unreserved contentment on Draco’s face when Harry kissed him. 

Not that she’d admit that, mind.

And that Christmas Eve - the first one they shared as a family, when things were still a little new and a little wobbly but so, so good - Nev and Gin and Luna came over to help them trim the gigantic and mostly tasteful (but rather ostentatious) tree and it was - it was just right. 

They sat on the fluffy velvet couches, recessed lighting off but fairy lights on, and the kids rolled around on the carpet, making a mess, tickling and yelling and coming up with alarming plans, and -

“Ask me again.”

Harry paused, fingers sifting through silky strands of hair, “What?”

“What you asked me, in Cork. Ask me again.”

“I -” oh. Oh.

“Will you -”

“Not now, you lunatic. But - in a year. A year and one day. When you’ve... stayed with me. Ask me then.”

“Alright,” he looked at Draco’s profile as he stared into the fire, an uneven flush on his cheeks, “I love you very much, you know.”

Draco scoffed. 

“I love you too, you abject disaster. Now shut up and grab me some champagne.”

Al had been right.

It was good, being all the way happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "When I Fall in Love" by Nat King Cole, and "The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" by David Bowie and Bing Crosby.
> 
> "When I give my heart it will be completely  
> Or I'll never give my heart  
> And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too  
> Is when I fall in love with you."


	26. Epilogue

All of our stories have what ifs. We cannot go through life without them - without the paths we didn’t take, without the paths our parents and lovers and friends took. We’re strung out on a line, decision after decision tumbling down our lives, triggering the next, the next. We have all of the control and none. Harry and Draco - this has been their story, their choices, their consequences, unalterable as it was told. Lived. But -

This is how it could have been different.

In their first year at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall - who was so often exasperated and busy and run off her feet by her rebellious Gryffindor charges - watched Harry Potter. She saw how he was too thin, how he stuffed himself in the great hall, hunched over his plate, protecting it - how he flinched too easily and too often. She took her concerns to Dumbledore, who attempted, in his usual enigmatic way, to brush her off. And she stood her ground. 

And in second year, Professor Snape noticed the ring of bruises around Draco's wrist when he came back from Christmas hols. 

In this other world, they were noticed. 

And the adults around them stepped in.

In this other world, Harry got adopted by the Weasleys, and Draco's mum was brave, confronted by the reality of her husband’s monstrosity, and she was the first Black to file for divorce. Harry grew up with Charlie as a big brother - Charlie, the dragon tamer with the tattoos and the leather jacket and the boyfriend - and Harry learned how not to be afraid of that secret within him. Draco still lit candles at Solstice, still had pride in wizarding traditions, but it was a pride made richer by the kindness of Andie, and a relationship with cousin Dora. Narcissa, still upright and regal, unclenched, proved that she was eager to love him and make amends for all she had done to harm him, now that they both were free.

Both boys were still competitive, facing off on the quidditch pitch, and they hurled insults, and banged about - but after a vicious snowball fight in third year they dropped to the ground, exhausted, and broke out into giggles. Draco held out his hand, smiling. Harry took it.

They were friends. It was - it was good.

Nothing could have stopped the evil which had always existed in their world. War is war; hate is hate. But in this other universe, the world where the adults did their jobs, where childhood was protected, where they both were loved, they fought on the same side. 

And Draco walked Harry into the forest and kissed him in the dark and it was terrifying and desperate and still so, so sweet.

He sent him to his end. Together they created their beginnings. 

When Harry and Draco thought about this undiscovered path, they couldn’t be sure, really, if they would have run away - if they would have shared that tiny apartment in Cork, or had a scalding hot bath in a fancy hotel, or fucked with such frenzy against the wall of a nightclub. Draco wondered if he would have learned the value of plain, hard work, scrubbing floors and counting the till. And Harry thought that maybe he wouldn’t have his three children - four, now, counting Scorpius - whom he loved so completely. Both of them longed so hungrily for a better past, a history which didn’t hurt so damned much, and Draco dreamed about a life without the mark on his arm and the heavy press of his father’s hand; Harry craved parents who cared.

Nothing could ever excuse that pain, nothing could justify it, and there was no “but” at the end of that sentence. They had been children and they had been wronged. They were the amalgamation, the culmination of all of those things, the hurtful things; could there ever be any justification? Any prize which made that all worth it?

The mystery of those other lives was not for them to know. 

Not for us to know about our own.

But there, in the beautiful apartment secured by the galleons which were his parents' and Sirius's legacy - there, wrapped up in a new kind of forever, Draco resting in Harry’s arms, finally uninjured - they loved each other with all of that history and the sorrow and the ecstasy borne of choices they’d had to make. They were happy, finally, and they didn’t take it for granted.

And they loved their children as they should have been loved. 

And that was right and good.

That was the path they had taken, and they did their best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "The Book of Love" by Peter Gabriel.
> 
> "The book of love is long and boring  
> No one can lift the damn thing  
> It's full of charts and facts and figures  
> And instructions for dancing  
> But I  
> I love it when you read to me  
> And you  
> You can read me anything"
> 
> Author's note:
> 
> This chapter means a whole hell of a lot to me. To put it bluntly, I was abused and neglected as a child, and my life has been colored by those experiences. I often think about who I might have been without that abuse - what other choices I might have made. I sought security, safety, and a gentle love above all else, and I neglected so many other parts of myself. Now, close to Draco and Harry's ages in this story, I'm figuring out that my trauma is not the only thing which defines me. That I am worthy of so much love. 
> 
> Adults should always step in. We deserve a better world, and we have an obligation to make that world for our children. And that's the way it is.


	27. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's epilogue compliance without saying eff you to JK and including a little Scorbus?

“Do we have the most epically weird family in the world, do you think?”

Scorp was lazing in bed - the single they’d transfigured into a double as soon as they’d come home, and that their dads had, after blushing (Harry) and cackling (Draco), resolutely ignored - and Al was unpacking his school trunk for the last time. Scorp was releasing and catching a golden snitch - the snitch he’d grabbed in the quidditch final, which had won them the house cup. 

“What d’you mean?”

“Well,” Scorp put the snitch down, “It’s all a bit…”

“What?”

“So your mum and dad got divorced, right, and your mum is shacked up with Nev and Luna, who is my cousin, sort of.”

“Uh-huh,” Al folded up the invisibility cloak, which had gotten them into and kept them out of trouble too many times to count, and flopped down onto the bed next to Scorp.

“And James, your brother, is living in sin -” 

Al snorted and muttered, “So dramatic, really, I bet you got that from gran ‘Cissa -”

“With Gabbi - and Teddy, who’s your father’s godson.”

“Right.”

“And we’re -”

Al grabbed his hand, twined their fingers together, “We’re what?”

Scorp blushed, that Malfoy skin showing every emotion, much to his eternal frustration.

“Well some might suggest that we’re… brothers.”

He laughed, rolled on top of Scorp, kissed his neck.

“So,” lick, “Not,” nibble, “Brothers.”

“Mmm…” Scorpius stretched out, quiet for a moment.

“Plus,” Al propped himself up, raising an eyebrow, looking more like Scorp’s father than his own, “I thought the Malfoys were all about incest.”

Scorp slapped his arm, “Ugh. No one can prove that.”

“Right,” with a smirk, “Of course.”

“Anyway,” he dragged his hands down Al’s back, cupping his arse, “Sometimes I think our dads just, like, rained down weirdness on everyone. They are terminally weird.”

“I think you’ll find that it’s your father that talks dirty to the espresso machine.”

“It does make fantastic coffee.”

“True,” he reached down, pulled Scorp more tightly around him, Scorp’s thighs gripping his hips.

“And it’s your father that tears up and smiles like a lunatic when he catches us kissing.”

Al snorted again, louder, “Also true.”

Scorp stilled, frowned a little. Al sighed and sat up.

“What’s really bothering you?”

“I just,” he scooched back, sitting with his back against the headboard, “It feels like a lot of... baggage. History for us to live with.”

Al ruffled his hair - almost as messy as his dad’s - and pursed his lips, thinking.

“We can’t help that our parents are… complicated. I mean, I had to come to terms with the fact that my dad is, you know,” in air quotes, “Harry Potter, a long time ago. And you -”

“Yeah. Father’s always been open about what he - what happened. Back then.”

“I’m honestly grateful, sort of,” he ran his hands up Scorp’s shins, fiddling with the seams on his jeans.

“What for?”

“We live in better times, you know?”

Scorp’s frown softened, “Yeah.”

“We can do what we want. They - they at least felt like - they couldn’t,” he pulled, gently, on Scorp’s feet, and Scorp slid up to sit in his lap.

“So.”

“So.”

Al grinned, cheeky, and winked. 

“So… you okay with fucking your brother?”

“Oh my God, Al, really,” he made his scandalized face, then smiled, kissed him, “You’re awful.”

“I know,” he held his muscled back, “But you love me.”

“Goddess knows why.”

He leered, “Might have something to do with the way I -”

“Oh do be quiet.”

Scorpius leaned forward, tipping Al onto his back. 

“Better times, hmm?” He sucked on Al’s neck, leaving a deep purple bruise (not knowing, thank God, that that was his father’s signature move). 

“Fuck - yeah - and I can,” he moaned, thrusting up, “Get my potions mastery, and you can… What’re you planning, again?”

“I’ve told you,” he ground down, beginning to breathe heavy.

“And I - oh goddess - don’t believe you.”

Scorp licked a hot line over the love bite, “I plan on being a gentleman of leisure.”

“That is not a valid career path.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Al did that thing where he twisted his hips, and Scorp moaned and had to stop for a moment, “Harry seems to enjoy being Father’s kept man, since he convinced him to quit the Aurors.”

“Yes, but my dad is bloody boring.” Scorp laughed, “And you’re brilliant -”

He slid down Al’s body, hands on his zip, and smirked, “Well, obviously.”

“I mean you got basically a million NEWTS. Oh, Christ -” Scorp’s broom-calloused hand moved around him.

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Not by much.”

“Shut up for a minute, will you?”

Al did - he couldn’t exactly form coherent words at this particular moment - and his hips jerked up as Scorp took him into his mouth. Fuck, it was good to be home, in the room that their dads had finally let them share again (not that the separation had really stopped them, before). Scorp’s lips were hot and wet and frankly obscene, and Al, if he had any thoughts at all, thought that nothing in the world was as perfect and beautiful as this. Them. The way they were supposed to be.

After, once he’d come spectacularly and returned the favor with all the enthusiasm of their 18 years, they lay in bed, lazy, fingers trailing over exposed skin.

“Look, I didn’t want to say anything, not until…”

Al looked down at Scorp’s blonde head, resting on his chest.

“What?”

He was unusually still, “I may have… tried out for the Wasps.”

“You -” Al lifted his head.

“And I may have an unopened Owl. From them.”

“That’s brilliant! But - unopened? Why?”

Scorp held on, just a bit too tight, “I just - I’m not ready, you know? For things to change.”

“What things?”

“Us. Maybe.”

Could he really think that Al didn’t - that he would ever let him go?

Seven years as best friends - sneaking around as so much more for two of those, and kissing in secret corridors, and laughing into their pillows, trying to keep quiet, trying to spend every possible moment together - they were... inevitable. 

That was just the way it was.

“Scorp…”

“I just, I know it’s stupid, but I - I don’t want to - I mean we’ve been living together, sort of, for all this time, and I -”

“Scorpius,” Scorp sat up, Al gazing at him and grabbing his hand, “I don’t want that to change, either.”

“Really?” His eyes were wide.

“Of course. So we’re not at school. So what? We’ll still…”

He rose, ran his fingers through Scorp’s hair, brought their faces close together.

“Let’s ask Pants to find us a flat. Together. Alright?”

“Oh,” he smiled, slow and sweet and shy, “Yeah, alright.”

When they found a flat they could afford on their starting salaries - Al, with his potions mastery stipend, and Scorpius, with his beginning pay as a reserve player for the Wasps - their dads were the first of their family to see it.

The flat was small - barely three rooms, just a living space with a tiny kitchenette, a bedroom with a crowded bathroom, the shower cubicle about the size of a postage stamp - and it was a bit dingey, with some crumbling plaster, the walls thin enough to let in the sound of someone playing music next door - and as soon as Harry stepped in, he started sniffling.

“I know it’s not much, Dad -” Al started, embarrassed.

“No,” Harry wiped at his eyes, and Draco rolled his own, but with a tiny smile tucked in the corner of his mouth, “It’s perfect.”

“Harry, why do I take you anywhere, Merlin’s knickers.”

Harry laughed, wetly, and thwapped him.

Scorp’s eyebrows were drawn together, nervous, “Is it alright, Father?”

“Yes, Scorpius,” and his lips, despite his exasperated tone, wobbled for just a moment, “It’s alright.”

“I give in,” Al said, getting ready for bed (once their totally mortifying fathers had left), wrapping an arm around Scorp as they brushed their teeth. “Our dads are terminally weird. You were right.”

“I’m always right,” Scorp raised his eyebrows at Al in the mirror.

Albus spat, smiled, kissed his neck, and slapped his arse. 

“Yeah, yeah.”

Back in their own flat, Harry and Draco were snuggled up under their green duvet with silver stitching, totally nude, as always. Draco’s head was tucked up under Harry’s chin, and Harry kissed his platinum hair.

“D’you ever -”

Draco yawned, stretched, settled more solidly into Harry’s arms.

“What, love?”

“Al and Scorp, they’re so…” he trailed off, then said, mournful, almost under his breath, “We could have had years.”

Draco turned, propped himself up, elbow on the mattress and head in his hand.

“Yes. But…”

He placed his hand over Harry’s on his chest, a silver band on Harry’s fourth finger complimenting the gold on Draco’s, and laced their fingers together.

“We gave those years to them, I think. For them.”

“Oh,” and Draco leaned over and kissed him, firm, fitting, passionate as fiendfyre, even then.

“You still owe me, though.”

Harry lifted and settled Draco on top of him, sliding his legs open and grasping him with the strong muscles of his thighs.

“I think I may have a few ideas of how to pay you back.”

“Oh yes?” Draco gasped as Harry rocked up against him, laughing. 

“Mmhmm,” they moved together, languid and loving and familiar and still, somehow, as fresh and new as Ireland in the summertime.

Draco hovered over Harry’s lips, just a breath away, and before he kissed him, he whispered, 

“I’ll have to check my schedule.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist track: "Changes" by David Bowie.
> 
> "And these children that you spit on  
> As they try to change their worlds  
> Are immune to your consultations  
> They're quite aware of what they're goin' through"

**Author's Note:**

> First off, a big - no, a freaking huge - thank you to all of the readers who commented on this story when I posted it last year, and a big-ass thank you to a reader who went looking for it after I took it down and messaged me on tumblr. Writing this fic was a hell of a ride - I finished it in about two weeks like the manic bipolar bitch I am, and then I turned it into a whole novel which I hope to Merlin I get to publish some day. This fic changed my life. I know that's terribly dramatic and perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but writing both Harry and Draco allowed me to see what went wrong in my own path. Where I'd let myself become numb. You're never too old to figure out happy, and happy will look different as you age, and yet it's always in you. Always.
> 
> Odd little authorial notes: 
> 
> Draco is wearing “Eau Duelle” from Diptyque, which is a very junipery-vanilla, and Harry is wearing “Pansy” (ha!) from Lush Cosmetics, because I am a huge dork and love perfume. Together, they smell like a bombay sapphire martini. Christ.
> 
> There is a “Survive Your Naked Eyes” playlist on Spotify. It is very weird and eclectic. It made me cry thinking of our boys many times. It’s in chronological order based on the chapters, with songs either mentioned here or inspired by the events/moods/internal processes of the characters. Oy, Belle, why are you so extra?
> 
> This fic would not exist without music (thank you, David Bowie) and poetry (ditto, W.B. Yeats) - and it would not exist without the feeling of being young and messy and broken, without the aching beauty of growing up, without faith in true love. I didn't know I still believed in that until Harry and Draco woke me up. Fandom is a gift. I wish you all of those disastrous, painful, glorious feelings, and a very happy holiday season indeed.


End file.
